{"id":342912,"date":"2017-08-07T15:50:19","date_gmt":"2017-08-07T15:50:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=342912"},"modified":"2017-11-10T10:42:54","modified_gmt":"2017-11-10T10:42:54","slug":"over-dependence-on-gold-oil-risky-for-economy-economist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=342912","title":{"rendered":"Over dependence on gold, oil risky for economy \u2013 Economist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Africa Strategist for Research at Barclays, Rydel Marcus has impressed on government to channel investments to grow Ghana\u2019s industrial subsector.<\/p>\n<p>He argues that the over dependence on the commodities\u2019 market has the potential to distort government\u2019s growth targets and must be relooked at.<\/p>\n<p>Rydel Marcus believes that industries must be given the appropriate support to diversify Ghana\u2019s exports to increase competitiveness.<\/p>\n<p>He made the remarks at this year\u2019s Ghana Economic Forum (GEF) in Accra on Monday.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-342918 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/WhatsApp-Image-2017-08-07-at-13.57.58.jpeg\" alt=\"whatsapp-image-2017-08-07-at-13-57-58\" width=\"600\" height=\"337\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\u201cSince 2010 and 2011, there has been an increasing correlation between the economy and the performance of commodities. It is therefore no surprise that as the commodities\u2019 index picked up, the real GDP may also go up from 2017 till the next two years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Declining crude oil prices have for instance affected Ghana\u2019s revenue from the oil sector even though the country is a net importer of oil.<\/p>\n<p>But Rydel Marcus believes reversing this trend should also attract more Foreign Direct Investments into the country.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-342915 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/WhatsApp-Image-2017-08-07-at-13.57.36.jpeg\" alt=\"whatsapp-image-2017-08-07-at-13-57-36\" width=\"600\" height=\"337\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\u201cHigher commodities output of gold, oil and cocoa means the challenge is how to make the economy diversified so that its link with commodities is weakened yet we want to reap the full benefits of the commodity cycle,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Senior Minister pushes for support for private sector<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo Maafo has warned of dire economic consequences should the private sector be deprived of the needed support to grow.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_342916\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-342916\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-342916\" src=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/WhatsApp-Image-2017-08-07-at-13.57.39.jpeg\" alt=\"Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo Maafo \" width=\"600\" height=\"337\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-342916\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo Maafo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>He argues that policies should be made to support the private sector which plays a lead role in the economy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGhana must play a lead role and this means that our laws must support the private sector, give advantage to the private sector and should with together with captains of the industry, make sure the Ghanaian is on the wind directing the economy. We have to be thinking along this line\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ghana\u2019s economic issues endemic<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Director of the Debt Management Division at the Ministry of Finance, Samuel Arkhurst also described the country\u2019s macroeconomic stability as endemic.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_342920\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-342920\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-342920\" src=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/WhatsApp-Image-2017-08-07-at-13.58.15.jpeg\" alt=\"Samuel Akhurst - Director of the Debt Management Division at the Ministry of Finance\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-342920\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Samuel Akhurst &#8211; Director of the Debt Management Division at the Ministry of Finance<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>He views this as a major factor that must be worked on to improve the country\u2019s economic outlook.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut it tells you that the world has changed and that is one of the key things that we have realized since the dawn of the IMF and the history of globalization. Macro stability seems to be an endemic one that as you solve one, you see that you enter into a decade where new and very deep vulnerable issues come out that we will have to settle with. That may be the reason why we may have had about sixteen IMF programs in our history of sixty years,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>By: Pius Amihere Eduku\/Jessica Ayorkor Aryee\/ Anita Arthur\/citibusinessnews.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Africa Strategist for Research at Barclays, Rydel Marcus has impressed on government to channel investments to grow Ghana\u2019s industrial subsector. He argues that the over dependence on the commodities\u2019 market has the potential to distort government\u2019s growth targets and must be relooked at. Rydel Marcus believes that industries must be given the appropriate support [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[121,32,171,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-342912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-banking-and-finance","category-business","category-local-economy","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=342912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342912\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=342912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=342912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=342912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}