Finance Minister engages Arab Coordination Group on $12 billion growth strategy

Dr Mohammed Amin Adam, Minister for Finance and Economic Planning, has engaged members of the Arab Coordination Group to support the Government's growth strategy which targets an investment of $12 billion.The Government, having successfully undergone both domestic and external debt restructuring and moved onto the path of economic recovery, seeks to have investments in key sectors of the economy in the next three years.The Minister who met the Group on 'Unleashing Opportunities through Strategic Investments' during the Lunch Business Meeting, said key sectors like agriculture, tourism, SMEs, and increase enrollment of social interventions like Livelihoods Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) and School Feeding Programme.The Group had officials from the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA), the Arab Monetary Fund and the Saudi Fund for Development.Dr Amin Adam said Ghana, in 2021, signed a partnership agreement involving 2.4 billion dollars to fund various projects and such project s were at various stages of completion whilst some were already contributing to Ghana's economic growth.'Our friends and partners here have supported us through our difficult times and will once again come around to support us to be able to invest heavily in agriculture, one of our anchors for growth. We have enormous potential to increase agricultural production,' he said.The Minister said tourism, the third highest contributor to Ghana's GDP, would see massive investments where hospitality facilities and other tourist sites would be developed to generate revenue and scale up growth.He said the Government was serious about growing the economy by investing heavily in SMEs, which constitute 92 per cent of all registered companies in Ghana and 85 per cent of manufacturing jobs are coming from SMEs.'We have mobilized close to $600 million to provide financing support, but also technical capacity to SMEs across the country. So we call on partners to help us with 12 billion dollars so we could support the growth efforts of the country,' he said.Dr Amin Adam said the economy had started recovering, adding that in 2023, the economy grew at 2.9 per cent against a target of 1.5 per cent and this year, it grew at 4.7 per cent in the first quarter, more than the annual target of 3.1 per cent.The Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA) was established under the resolution of the 6th Arab Summit Conference at Algiers (28 November 1973).The Bank began operations in March 1975 to strengthen economic, financial and technical cooperation between Arab and African countries.Dr Drad Karrar, Chief Operations Officer, BADEA, said Ghana's strategy aligned well with BADEA's goals as the investments, particularly in agriculture would solve unemployment and contribute to the country's GDP.He said they had done some assessments of the country's national development programmes and realized that any developmental projects in those key sectors would be beneficial.'We do have around 42 projects app roved at the cost of $11 million. Out of this 33 projects have been completed and 9 projects focus on capacity development and technical assistance,' Dr Karrar said.Source: Ghana News Agency