The Ghana Chamber of Commerce and Industry wants the government to go beyond just bailing out the 6 indigenous banks but ensure that management of these banks complies with what is contained in the bailout package.
CEO of the Chamber, Mark Badu-Aboagye tells JoyBusiness even though the bailout is highly commendable, efforts to sustain the liquidity of these banks in the future must be the overall aim.
“It’s important we develop our economies with our local banks. What we need is proper monitoring. We can’t get to the situation of banks collapsing after all these monies have been pumped into these indigenous banks. The BoG has to crack the whip and be stricter moving forward,” Mark Badu-Aboagye said.
Economic expectation for 2019
As Ghana’s business community readies for a profitable year in 2019, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry is calling for a more favourable business environment this year.
So far, some business associations described the last year as one of the challenging following the fall of the cedi, high lending rates and port inefficiencies among other issues.
Mr Badu-Aboagye tells JoyBusiness that a stable cedi, low lending rates at the banks and a favourable business environment will be the main indicators to expect in 2019.
Ghana’s import led economy, according to him, risks facing some downturns should the cedi underperforms against major currencies in 2019.
“We expect Government puts in place measures (both monetary and fiscal policies) to ensure the cedi is stabilized to withstand these external shocks,” he said.
The Ghana cedi began the year at a relatively stable position, recording just under 0.3 per cent depreciation in the first quarter.
However, as at August 22, 2018, the cedi recorded depreciation of 6.4 per cent on the interbank market.
This figure is worse when compared to the 4.1 per cent recorded within the same period last in 2017. It is also a poorer result than the 4.7 per cent depreciation recorded in the entire 2017.
The second quarter also saw 2.59 per cent depreciation. However, the cedi surpassed its cumulative performance of the first two quarters – deprecating by about 7.3 per cent by end-September 2018 before stabilizing in the final quarter to date.
Activities of the Chamber in 2019
Meanwhile, the Ghana Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) will in 2019 be embarking on two major projects - The Chamber Business School and Chamber Business Clinic. This move forms part of other business advisory services aimed at making Ghana’s business environment very competitive.
“We have come out with a project that will provide capacity building training for the business community. Business clinic is for SMEs. What we are doing is to assemble experts in all business fields be it finance, legal, marketing whatnot. The SMEs that don’t have the capacity to seek legal services will be supported through the capacity building training,” he stated.
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
Instagram
Google+
YouTube
LinkedIn
RSS