By Oforiwa Darko
In November 2022, Ghana recorded one of its highest inflation in more than two decades. The spike in inflation to 50.3% was largely driven by a surge in food and fuel prices which in turn pushed the cost of housing, water, and electricity up. As a result, a lot of businesses took a nose dive with overall GDP which in 2021 stood at 5.8 percent expected to drop to 2.7 percent in 2022.
For businesses to be resilient and adaptive during economic challenges and see crisis as an opportunity to learn and grow, the maiden annual New Year Business Forum has been held in Accra. The forum which brought together about 50 business leaders focused on discussions spanning from agriculture, aviation, financial, manufacturing sectors, among others.
The business leaders met to deliberate on lessons learnt during the global economic crunch witnessed in 2022 and how to turn the obstacles into opportunities. Dubbed the “New Year Business Forum”, making businesses resilient and competitive even in the midst of economic downturn were some of the high points.
According to the Chief Executive of AsaFoods, Dr Asare-Adjei, the Business Community should demand bold decisions from Government and policy makers in order to boost local production.
“I believe when local indigenous businesses are supported, particularly in manufacturing, we can drastically bridge the importation gap. One key area which we have made strides in the past three to five years is local rice production. Rice production in the country has moved from 50,000 metric tonnes to over 400,000 metric tonnes in a year. This means that when local producers are given the needed assistance, local business would thrive”.
The Chief Executive of the McDan Group of Companies, Dr. Daniel McKorley charged the government to support the development of Ghanaian businesses by creating avenues to boost local content in all sectors of the economy.
“Ghana has to adopt “the Nigerian way” of doing business to strengthen local content and ensure that indigenes take control of the local economy”.
Dr. McKorley urged Ghanaian Business leaders to rise up to the task to participate in open tenders, and not leave foreigners to win many government contracts.
The Africa Trade Office partnered with the McDan Group to organize the maiden New Year Business Forum. The meeting is intended to become a biannual event on the calendar of the business community.