The minister for Foreign Affairs and NEPAD, Nana Ado Dankwa Akuffo Addo, has said that Ghana would follow the footsteps of South Korea to work towards the achievement of the middle-income status by the year 2015.
The minister was delivering a speech at a luncheon hosted on his behalf by the Ghana mission in South Korea on June 3, 2006 during an official visit to the Republic of Korea.
He said the achievement of South Korea's $20,000 per capita did not come about without hard work, enterprise, integrity and sheer determination and Ghana would emulate those values to achieve same.
The minister said, sanity has been restored in Ghana's macro-economic framework and is on the path for accelerated growth. He recounted that inflation in Ghana had reduced drastically from 40% in 2001 to a single digit figure of 9% last month. "Interest rates, a senseless 50%, have now come down to more manageable levels of some 23%, with every indication of further fall."
He said the cedi has enjoyed its longest stability since it started freely twenty-one years ago. On GDP growth rate, Hon. Nana Akufo Addo said the economy grew at 5.6% in 2004 and 6% in 2005.
He believed that with the G-8 inspired cancellation of the country's multinational debt and right fiscal policies, the economy would grow at an accelerated growth rate of between 8% and 10%. "We now have the fiscal space to accelerate the development of our economy and attain the 8-10% growth rate we need to reach consistently for a decade, if we are to transform our economy as South Korea did."
The minister said Ghana is doing its best to put in place policies towards strengthening and promoting the private sector as Korea has done.
He also reminded Korean investors that Ghana is ripe for investments and he advised them to invest into agro-processing and production, fishing, manufacturing, mining and ICT. Currently, there are two examples of Korean investments that are performing well, Afko Fisheries and I-Tel. He said I-Tel started with an investment of $200 million and now reports an annual turnover of $4million and a 400-strong staff.
The minister further stated that it was because of these developments that Ghana is attracting the SK Corporation of Korea to participate with Samsung Corporation in the privatization of Tema Oil Refinery.
