PRESIDENT NANA Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on Wednesday told the plenary session of the 7th Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) that Ghana’s economy was on course with the introduction of strategic programmes initiated by his administration.
He said the New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration was able to achieve such feat in less than three years after it took over power from the previous administration.
The President said Ghana was taking a cue from what transpired between 1965 and 1990 when the East Asian Miracle happened in some 23 East Asian countries, largely on their promotion of the private sector.
“We, in Ghana, are taking steps to put our country onto a similar path. Maintaining a stable macro-economy is fundamental to attracting private sector investment,” he emphasised adding that government was committed to pampering the private sector to lead in the creation of jobs and economic freedom.
President Akufo-Addo noted that government had been able to implement tax cuts and incentives to spur the speedy development of Ghana’s private sector.
The IMF has forecast that Ghana’s economy will grow fastest in the world for 2019.
The President stressed that had led, in his time as President, “to some of the world’s largest vehicle manufacturing companies signaling their intention to set up assembly plants in the country, with global energy giants investing in the development of our considerable oil and gas deposits, and the establishment of the first Artificial Intelligence Centre in Africa by Google in Ghana. Their decision to operate in Ghana is for good reason.”
He added that his administration was, among other things, taking advantage of technology to introduce reforms aimed at improving regulatory processes, digitizing a lot of transactions to make life easy for Ghanaians.
“We are embracing fully the advancements made in the digital world to help drive growth and increase productivity of our economy. It is time we also traded in the world economy, not only on the basis of exports of raw materials, but also on the basis of things we make and grow,” he said.
Courtesy call
At an earlier engagement, Pravind Jugnauth, Prime Minister of Mauritius, paid a courtesy call on President Akufo-Addo.
The two leaders discussed holding the next session of the Permanent Joint Commission for Co-operation (PJCC), which offers the legal framework for addressing the trade and investment concerns of Ghana and Mauritius.