{"id":292149,"date":"2017-02-08T09:51:43","date_gmt":"2017-02-08T09:51:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=292149"},"modified":"2017-02-08T09:51:43","modified_gmt":"2017-02-08T09:51:43","slug":"businesses-still-reel-under-high-cost-of-utility-taxes-agi-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2017\/02\/businesses-still-reel-under-high-cost-of-utility-taxes-agi-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Businesses still reel under high cost of utility, taxes &#8211; AGI report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>High cost of utility still remains one of the major challenges confronting businesses in Ghana.<\/p>\n<p>This is according to the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI)\u2019s 2016 fourth quarter business barometer report.<\/p>\n<p>[contextly_sidebar id=&#8221;5490BJwkJQK5vAHj9eDqeZA6CrJCZalT&#8221;]According to the report, high cost of credit, multiplicity of taxes and cedi depreciation followed closely as top challenges for businesses.<\/p>\n<p>Comparing the third and fourth quarters of 2016, 70% of businesses surveyed expected business confidence to improve.<\/p>\n<p>This was higher compared to the about 57% recorded in the previous quarter.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the number of businesses who expected business confidence to remain the same dropped from 37 to 26% within the two quarters.<\/p>\n<p>Similarly, businesses who expected confidence to be worse than normal, dropped, from 6.2 to 3%.<\/p>\n<p>The report, therefore, indicates that business confidence is beginning to rise, from 99.0 in the third quarter to 101.6 points in the fourth quarter of 2016.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_68829\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-68829\" style=\"width: 700px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-68829 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/citibusinessnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Business-Barometer-report.jpg\" alt=\"Credit: AGI 2016 Q4 business barometer report\" width=\"700\" height=\"473\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-68829\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Credit: AGI 2016 Q4 business barometer report<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Also, about 10% more of employers surveyed in the 3<sup>rd<\/sup> quarter of\u00a02016 are likely to hire more by the end of March\u00a02017.<\/p>\n<p>Although business expectations of the new government are high, they expect government to address critical issues such as high taxes, high cost of electricity, high cost of credit and check influx of imports.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, businesses are optimistic about improved performance in the first quarter of this year.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>By: Jessica Ayorkor Aryee\/citibusinessnews.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>High cost of utility still remains one of the major challenges confronting businesses in Ghana. This is according to the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI)\u2019s 2016 fourth quarter business barometer report. [contextly_sidebar id=&#8221;5490BJwkJQK5vAHj9eDqeZA6CrJCZalT&#8221;]According to the report, high cost of credit, multiplicity of taxes and cedi depreciation followed closely as top challenges for businesses. Comparing the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[32,171,11],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Businesses still reel under high cost of utility, taxes - AGI report - Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2017\/02\/businesses-still-reel-under-high-cost-of-utility-taxes-agi-report\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Businesses still reel under high cost of utility, taxes - AGI report - Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"High cost of utility still remains one of the major challenges confronting businesses in Ghana. This is according to the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI)\u2019s 2016 fourth quarter business barometer report. [contextly_sidebar id=&#8221;5490BJwkJQK5vAHj9eDqeZA6CrJCZalT&#8221;]According to the report, high cost of credit, multiplicity of taxes and cedi depreciation followed closely as top challenges for businesses. Comparing the [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2017\/02\/businesses-still-reel-under-high-cost-of-utility-taxes-agi-report\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. 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