Best time to invest in digital economy is now – Prof Appiah-Adu to investors

The fast-growing local digital economy offers several commercial opportunities for both domestic and international investments, a Senior Policy Advisor to the Vice President, Professor Kwaku Appiah-Adu, has said.

While noting that happenings within the digital space present a good opportunity to leapfrog the country's development, drive change, create jobs, and initiate economic recovery and growth, he added that it will also bring hope to Ghanaians.

Prof. Appiah-Adu was speaking at the 'Hungary – West Africa Online Digital Business Forum', and encouraged investors to explore investment in hard infrastructure, data infrastructure, service infrastructure, and digital skills development in the country. He also mentioned other profitable areas for investment such as soft infrastructure, digital security and safety, digital (smart) society, sovereign digital architecture, digital government, digital entrepreneurship, digital citizenship, and digital financial services.

"Government's goal is to leverage technology wherever possible to innovate both public and private administration systems, so as to increase transparency and accountability; increase access to and delivery of public services at least transaction costs, and eliminate opportunities for bribery and corruption."

Also, government, he said, envisions Ghana as a leading economy powered by digital innovation, a smart nation with world-class regional cities that give businesses and institutions, among others, the best Ghanaian experience possible while promptly responding to their different and changing needs.

On the back of this, the government has since 2017 signaled its aspirations to build on ICT developments. This has been backed by the goal to transform Ghanaian society by leveraging technological innovations to advance the development process, overcome legacy administrative problems, and improve both economic and public sector governance, he added.

Since then, the country has made strides in this effort with the introduction of several digital innovations by the government into the system. This includes the issuance of a unique identity through the Ghana Card, property address system, Mobile money interoperability system, and digitisation of passport and driver-licensing system among others.

Ghana-Hungary bilateral relations

Prof. Appiah-Adu acknowledged the long mutual cooperation that has existed between the two countries over the years, which was reaffirmed by the recent visit by Hungarian President János Àder. The two countries, he said, have pledged to explore further areas of interest for the benefit of their citizens while signing some key agreements, some of which border on expanding relations in the areas of trade, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, and ICT, among others.

Also, the Senior Policy Advisor to the Vice President acknowledged that Hungary's government has shown a growing interest in topics related to digitalisation and digital skills. He revealed that it established the Digitális Jólét Programme (DJP 1, Digital Success Programme) in 2015, which focused on the development of digital infrastructure and know-how for citizens and businesses.