President John Agyekum Kufuor on Tuesday asked the entire Ghanaian society to be committed to higher levels of discipline, increased productivity and the pursuit of excellence to break new grounds to push the national economy forward. The Government on its part, he said, was determined to ensure sustained and realistic balance of enhanced incentive system and continued good governance. Additionally, it would see to it that the needed supervisory and national regulatory mechanisms were firmly in place. President Kufuor was speaking at an Economic Roundtable held at the M. Plaza Hotel in Accra. The event, organised by the Economist Conferences, a division of the Economist Intelligence Unit, brought together key Economic Ministers, the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, foreign investors and local business leaders to exchange ideas on the development of the private sector. It provided a platform for the participants to closely examine the main challenges and opportunities for business and the most promising investment sectors and provided answers to some key questions. President Kufuor, whose address was on the theme: "Fifty years of Independence: Where to now?" stated that, the country had now achieved reasonable measure of macro-economic stability and economic growth. Inflation and banks' lending rates continue to drop from very high levels of over 40 percent and over 50 percent, respectively, in 2001 to current inflation level of around 10 percent and lending rate of 19 percent. "With this new confidence, the country is taking some bold and measured steps into the international capital market with issuance of bonds to raise funds for investments in infrastructure development and for the development of the energy sector." President Kufuor said this should remove the structural bottlenecks within the economy and put it on a trajectory of accelerated growth. The success of this measure should help to wean Ghana from its dependence on donor aid to self-sufficiency. He mentioned the establishment of the International Financial Services Centre in partnership with the Barclays Bank, as another significant step taken, and expressed optimism that with time, this would make the nation a major international financial hub of the West Africa Sub-Region.