The Ghana Investment Promotion Center (GIPC), has kicked against calls to prevent foreign businesses from repatriating their profit in foreign currencies.
Economic analysts have argued that such a move will help prevent the cedi from depreciating against the major foreign currencies especially the dollar.
However, responding to the issue on the sidelines of the Money Summit organized by the Business and Financial Times, Chief Executive of GIPC, Yofi Grant, warns that such a policy could be counter productive and deter investors from coming to Ghana.
“So a lot of our energies go into ensuring that we grab those who have an interest in Ghana to come to Ghana and we talk with them and negotiate to get the best. Because when the foreign investment comes, it also brings opportunity for our own people. There’s job creation, there’s taxes paid, but it also gives our people something to look at to develop and build their own businesses. I mean, I can give you a very typical example, where in the mobile telephony space, most of the companies who came in with foreign data, but think about the businesses that have been built on mobile transfer alone,” he stated.
Meanwhile, government has revealed plans to pump some $2bn into the economy to mitigate the depreciation of the cedi against the world’s major trading currencies.
According to government, this forms part of measures adopted to salvage the country from the current economic crisis it faces as well as mitigate the hardships being experienced by the Ghanaian populace.
Amidst the growing depreciation of the cedi and the recent increments in fuel prices and prices of general goods, the government held a crunch cabinet meeting to find solutions to the raging economic challenges.
In a Facebook post on Wednesday, the Jubilee House highlighted four measures government has approved during its cabinet meeting to cushion Ghanaians amidst the economic hardships.
These include; the reopening of the country’s land borders within two weeks, Government cuts salaries of appointees by up to 30%, the Bank of Ghana increases policy rate to 17% and government to pump $2billion to rescue cedi
Source: Norvanreports