News

Friday, March 11, 2016

Global economic crisis hitting hard on Ghana's economy
Masahudu Ankiilu Kunateh, Ghanadot

Accra, March 25, Ghanadot - Ghana’s economy has already began feeling the assaults of the global economic recession as the country recorded low foreign direct investments for the first time in 10 years, low remittances in 2008 and the incessant depreciation of the cedi against the major currencies, a research fellow of the Institute of Statistical, Social, and Economic Research (ISSER) of the University of Ghana, Dr. Robert Osei has observed.

Speaking in an interview with the Ghanadot in Accra, Dr. Osei stressed that the declined in remittances would have serious effects on the country’s balance of payment and other financial intermediaries, emphasizing that small, and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) would find it tough to have access to credit and social intervention programs.

For Ghana to withstand the current crisis, however, Dr. Osei recommended that the country must take domestic capital mobilization seriously, and to diversify the economy towards the agricultural sector.

He further called on the governments of the ECOWAS sub-region to consider economic integration. This would enable them to trade among themselves thereby having access to larger market.

A Renowned Investment Consultant, Mr. Kwame Pianim, appealed to the government to use the current economic recession as an opportunity to empower the youth to go into agriculture. This could be done by assisting them with financial and technical resources and other incentives.

He noted, this would enable the country to cultivate enough food to feed the people and export the surplus to the other countries to earn foreign exchange, which could be used to provide developmental projects in the country.

The President of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), Mr. Tony Oteng-Gyasi reiterated the fact that the country faced a great threat from the global meltdown meant all was lost and therefore called on Ghanaians to pull their expertise together to help solve the crisis.

Also, economists say the current global economy is expected to shrink 1.5% for the first time in 60 years, while its impact would be disproportional shared with the developing countries than the developed world.

Developing countries, the economists indicate would be the hardest hit, since most of them depend on the bigger economies like the USA, Europe, and Asia for their survival.

Additionally, the economies of both developed and developing countries have been thrown into disarray as governments of the developed economies are desperately grappling with the crisis by intervening to bail out the key sectors of their economies.

These include resources to finance the budget, foreign aid and investment, travel, tourism and machinery to sustain industrial production.

However, the developing countries’ governments are in a limbo as to how to curtail the situation, which led them to implore try and error methods of rectifying the crisis.

Ghanadot