Businesses hopeful of good times in the next six months

Accra, Oct. 22, GNA - Business executives are confident that the next six months would be good for their operations, an Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) survey has revealed.

Over 83 per cent of the 279 company executives, who participated in the survey, held high expectations that although the overall business environment was unchanged in the last six months, there is hope that it would pick up for the rest of the year.

This assurance was contained in the third quarter report of the AGI Business Barometer, which captures the prevailing business mood and expectations of Chief Executive Officers quarterly.

Presenting the findings to the media, Mr Tony Oteng-Gyasi, President of AGI, said executives from micro to macro companies across the agriculture, manufacturing, services and other sectors gave their ratings on how they saw the performance of their businesses in the last six months and what their expectations were for the remaining six months.

There were also questions about the three most important challenges and any other problems that they faced in their operations. Mr Oteng-Gyasi said review of the data showed that companies in the services sector were most optimistic with about 90 per cent of respondent= s affirming that their business would be better. Cost of credit, inflation and access to credit remained the three ma= jor challenges confronting companies, according to the survey. Mr Oteng-Gyasi said cost of credit had been a persistent problem and=

there was the need to work out new solutions to enable companies borrow a= t lesser cost to expand their operations. He said although the prime rate had been kept stable in a bid to control cost of credit, companies still perceived lending rates as a majo= r barrier to accessing credit. "Evidently, there is the need for the central bank's intervention to=

cushion all businesses including those that have a long-term investment horizon yet required credit," he said. Companies still perceived lending rates as a major barrier to access= ing credit, regardless of the regulatory measure by the central bank. Cost of credit and inflation were identified as key challenges faced= by the manufacturing sector, many of which are already under-capitalized. Agriculture sector, which is pre-disposed to the vagaries of the weather, accessing credit remains a more difficult task than envisaged. Mr Gyasi said efforts should also be made to arrest the depreciation= of the cedi and stem inflation to make business planning more predictable.