The leadership of the Ghana National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GNCCI) met President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

The visit was to discuss the current economic crisis and how best to scale down the issues affecting businesses and the plight of the ordinary Ghanaian.

The GNCCI highlighted some concerns, including the cost of doing business in the country, which is rising due to the rapid depreciation of the cedi against major foreign currencies, interest rates, and high fuel prices.

The discussion specifically centred on the outlook for the country’s economy, which is getting worse due to rising public debt, weak domestic revenue performance, balance of payments issues, and a lack of fiscal restraint, which led to a credit rating downgrade.

According to the President of the Chamber, Mr. Clement Osei-Amoako, the situation is causing low confidence and speculative activity, which are harmful to the resilience and growth of businesses. “The obvious effect of this is that businesses are becoming less competitive in terms of pricing and quality, producing at sub-optimal levels, and some of them are collapsing,” he said.

He therefore urged the President of the Republic, H.E. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to urgently implement policies and programmes that proactively aim at improving productivity, adding value to raw materials, and increasing agricultural production to fuel a structural transformation process for growth.