<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Citi Business Festival<\/strong>\u2019s forum on surviving the uncertainties of consumer markets discussed ways of \u2018surviving uncertainties of consumer markets,\u2019 following the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n The forum featured Theresa Yamson, the CEO of Phyto-Riker; Robert Ahomka-Lindsay, former Deputy Minister of Trade; Michael Kottoh CEO of Konfidants, Charles Addo, the Retail Banking Director at Absa Bank and Cynthia Baffour, the CEO of Cyndex Garment Manufacturers.<\/p>\n They discussed how local manufacturers can better understand changes to their landscape and become more competitive.<\/p>\n Here are five takeaways from the forum.<\/p>\n Michael Kottoh believes the strength of Ghana\u2019s local manufacturing industry should be treated as a national security concern.<\/p>\n This is especially so following the pandemic, where there were global supply chain disruptions that left some countries without Personal Protective Equipment.<\/p>\n He said Ghana needed a \u201cnational security rationale for boosting manufacturing and local production.\u201d<\/p>\n Michael Kottoh suggested that Ghana outlines a list of products \u201cthat are fundamental to our natural survival, and a minimum percentage should be produced locally.\u201d<\/p>\n This will ultimately translate into economic dividends.<\/p>\n Ghanaians can be too hard on local manufacturing companies and their output; Robert Ahomka-Lindsay has said.<\/p>\n He reminded us that China was once the laughingstock of the world.<\/p>\n \u201cToday, China is the manufacturing arm of the world. In my day, people laughed at things that were manufactured in China because they were falling to pieces. But they had to go through that learning process.\u201d<\/p>\n Robert Ahomka-Lindsay further stressed that there was nothing wrong with some trial and error from local manufacturers.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the reality of learning,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Michael Kottoh suggested that Ghana should outline products it was going to make the preserve of local production.<\/p>\n \u201cMake a decision that the share of imports of these products, we want to progressively reduce them year-on-year over a period of time.\u201d<\/p>\n This could be over a five to 10-year period.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to focus on certain products and just zero in on them and see what we can do,\u201d Michael Kottoh said.<\/p>\n Cynthia Baffour noted that human resources must keep up with our ambitions to expand the local manufacturing industry.<\/p>\n But currently, she said, there may not be enough workers ready for industrial production.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you bring such people into a factory to work, you realise that they are not skilled because we are not trained to work in the fact. We are trained to work on a domestic level, so these invariably come to affect our work.\u201d<\/p>\n Robert Ahomka-Lindsay remains sceptical of how goods are priced in Ghana.<\/p>\n He argued for a competition policy to check the rate at which prices of goods increase in Ghana.<\/p>\n \u201cOur pricing structure is sometimes a little strange; hoe we roll up prices\u2026 it is just too fast,\u201d Robert Ahomka-Lindsay remarked.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a pricing structure that needs to be reviewed. Sometimes I wonder what the pricing logic is,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The\u00a0Citi Business Festival\u2019s forum on surviving the uncertainties of consumer markets discussed ways of \u2018surviving uncertainties of consumer markets,\u2019 following the COVID-19 pandemic. The forum featured Theresa Yamson, the CEO of Phyto-Riker; Robert Ahomka-Lindsay, former Deputy Minister of Trade; Michael Kottoh CEO of Konfidants, Charles Addo, the Retail Banking Director at Absa Bank and Cynthia […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1130128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[16760,3011,250,16758,2079,915],"class_list":["post-1130126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-competitiveness","tag-forum","tag-ghanas","tag-insights","tag-key","tag-trade"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1130126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1130126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1130126\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1130126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1130126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1130126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Local manufacturing capacity must be treated as a national security issue<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Local manufacturing companies must be given room to learn from failings<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Policy must dictate the share of imported goods in Ghana\u2019s markets<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Local industries need better human resources<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Ghana must have a competition policy to monitor price<\/strong><\/h4>\n