Economic policies will yield fruits 2015 – Moi Thompson

Economic Advisor to the President, Dr. Nii Moi Thompson has said he believes Ghanaians will benefit from the Government’s economic policies starting next year.

The Director General of the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), said Government has outlined measures to create an enabling environment to revive the country’s ailing manufacturing sector to create employment and boost its revenue generation.

“We are looking at restoring and sustaining macroeconomic stability. That means having certain indicators low and stable. The exchange rate has been relatively stable for the past few months, which is good. We expect to sustain that.

“We are pursuing policies such as restraining Government expenditure to bring down government borrowing and by extension, make available more resources for the business sector,” Dr Thompson said in an interview with Starr News' Osei Owusu Amankwaah, after the launch of Ghana’s first District Population and Housing Census report.

He added that: “We have targeted interventions in the form of assistance to SMEs, which employ the most people, so there is a whole range of initiatives [that] are already being pursued. We will begin to see the effects as we enter the coming year.”

The NDPC will soon come up with a medium-term national development policy framework geared towards reviving Ghana’s poor-performing manufacturing sector.

The policy will be launched alongside a long-term National Development Plan.

President John Mahama has submitted his government’s transformation agenda to parliament for thorough scrutiny. This is expected to be factored into the NDPC’s long-term National Development Plan.

“The President has just submitted his transformational agenda to Parliament: I don’t know when exactly they are going to debate that, but we have a whole programme and strategy for tackling that: how to revive the industrial sector broadly and manufacturing in particular, to create employment and also to make the economy resilient.”

Dr. Thompson told Starr Business the medium-term national development policy framework, which will be launched latest by the first quarter of 2015, will span from 2014 to 2016.