Chief Economist at World Bank, Indermit Gill
The government must focus on building a friendly business environment to attract more investments and look within to raise capital to accelerate the country’s growth, the Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank, Indermit Gill, has stated.
According to him, the global environment for raising capital was getting tough for Ghana and it was through increased Foreign Direct Investment, that the country can raise the necessary capital to support the economy.
Mr Gill made the call at the launch of the World Bank Group flagship report, World Development Report (WDR) 2024, in Accra on Thursday.
The report titled; ‘Middle-Income Trap,’ outlines growth strategies to help Middle-Income Economies (MIE) to escape debt traps and emphasises on investment, infusion and innovation to propel the growth of MIEs.
“The global environment is not getting any easier for a country like Ghana, which means that the domestic environment has to become even better or faster,” according to Mr Gill.
He said a good investment climate to attract more private investors into the country, could be achieved by opening up the economy to outside “technologies, ideas and innovation.”
Mr Gill further indicated that Ghana had a very good diaspora and it was big advantage that it could actually use the diaspora to connect with the rest of the world.
He noted that the government must focus on public to revamp the economy and not rather accumulating more debt.
Moreover, Mr Gill said Ghana must work to achieve growth rate of more than five per cent for a period of more than ten years in order to become a High Income Economy (HIE).
According to him, India, which was far behind Ghana in terms of per capita income, not so long ago had sustained growth of five per cent for more than 15 years and was now a HIE.
“There’s no reason why Ghana with its educated people, with lots of natural resources, with lots of so many other assets in terms of both its human capital as well as its natural resources should not grow faster. There’s no reason why Ghana shouldn’t be growing even faster than 5 per cent yearly,” Mr Gill emphasised.
He then urged the government to find a good blend of policies where public and private sector investment could be channelled into high return projects, to generate more revenue for the government to reduce the growing public debt.
Mr Gill noted that low public debt would help reduce government’s borrowing so as to make capital available for the private sector to fund businesses and spur business growth, stating that, “It is Ghana’s private investors that will lead Ghana into high income,” and not the government.
The World Bank Country Director for Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone, Western and Central Africa Region, Robert R. Taliercio, added that Ghana’s economy was fast recovering after the serious macroeconomic challenges it went through in 2022 due to high public debts.
He said the upcoming elections in Ghana remained a challenge, but the country could overcome through prudent spending in order not to throw the economy of gear.
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