The Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) has admonished government to ensure early implementation of the issues agreed on at the National Economic Forum (NEF) earlier this month.

The AGI says delays in implementing the 21-point consensus put forward by 140 participants of the national economic dialogue "will dash all hopes and prospects of getting our economy back on a sound trajectory."

Eonomic policy makers, representatives of traders associations, development and social partners, civil society organizations, members of academia and senior citizens participated in the three-day non-partisan National Economic Forum at Senchi.

"Industries are still under serious pressure from taxes and power outages. The resultant effect of these challenges is the high cost of doing business which continues to stifle growth and our competitiveness as a country", says the AGI.

These were contained in a statement released Thursday and signed by AGI President, James Asare-Adjei.

Find below the full statement:

AGI PRESS STATEMENT ON AFTERMATH OF NATIONAL ECONOMIC FORUM

The Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) commends Government for initiating the process to address the challenging economic situation in the recent National Economic forum held at Senchi. Industry is expectant of the outcome of the forum to mitigate the present economic hardships and the rising cost of doing business in the country. What is most important at this stage is the timely implementation of the outcome of the national consensus for economic and social transformation of our economy.  

The Association of Ghana Industries wishes to remind Government of the following;

i.The early implementation of the issues agreed on at the forum for the restoration of business confidence and recovery of our economy is so critical that any delay will dash all hopes and prospects of getting our economy back on a sound trajectory.

ii. The depreciation of the cedi against the major foreign currencies continues to take a heavy toll on businesses including all those which were hitherto less vulnerable to the effect of macro-economic instability. Raw material imports are getting much more expensive and Industries which require these foreign inputs cannot change their prices on a daily basis in order to cover foreign exchange losses.

iii.Industries are still under serious pressure from taxes and power outages. The resultant effect of these challenges is the high cost of doing business which continues to stifle growth and our competitiveness as a country.

iv. The AGI is calling on Government to put out a clear road map with timelines for the implementation of the issues outlined in the Senchi consensus as soon as possible.

v. Whilst implementing the prescriptions of the forum, it is imperative to consider these within the context of the existing policies, strategies and programmes that will stimulate growth in the industrial sector of the economy i.e. the Ghana Industrial Policy, the Industrial Sector Support Programme, the Private Sector Development Strategy II, Ghana Export Strategy etc, in order to fulfill the medium to long-term goals of our national development agenda.

AGI is therefore pledging its commitment to the implementation process and the monitoring of results, leading to sustainable growth of Industry in Ghana.

Yours faithfully,

Signed

J. Asare-Adjei

(President)