Linking Ghana’s growth to commodity sales is not key to prosperity – Prof. Lewis

Vice Dean of Academic and Faculty Affairs at Johns Hopkins University, Prof. Peter Lewis says Ghana’s economic growth shouldn’t be determined by commodity sales as that isn’t the key to prosperity.

According to him, depending on commodity sales of raw materials like cocoa, timber, or gold will affect the economy as its prices are not always stable in the international market so for the country to progress economically and steadily, the best thing to do will be to move up its value chain.

And this will be by focusing more on the manufacturing and processing sector by producing more of its existing raw products into finished goods. This according to him will be the key to economic prosperity for the country.

“We know that Ghana had strong performance in its traditional exports of cocoa, gold and timber. Two of those commodities have been quite flexible in recent years that will be cocoa and timber, both have been down and more recently we have oil”.

“And as we see and as we know from across West Africa, oil is volatile. It can go way up it can go down. So linking Ghana’s growth to primary commodities sales is not the key to prosperity”.

“The key to prosperity is moving up the value chain into higher up services, into added value, in manufacturing and into greater processing and achieving greater economies of scale and scope from Ghana’s existing products”, he said.

He therefore advised the country to gain control over the value chain by producing more of its raw materials into finished goods for greater gains.