Private sector booming – Mahama

The private sector in Ghana is benefiting from prudent measures instituted by the government, President John Dramani Mahama has said.

According to him, one area the sector is profiting from is the reduction of taxes on raw materials in the pharmaceutical sector in order to enable the companies produce more for both domestic use and export.

Addressing captains of industry at a breakfast meeting in Accra on Monday November 14, Mr Mahama said: “We need to find other means to support the private sector in terms of borrowing and that is why we have launched the Ghana Exim [Bank] and I am going to inaugurate it in the next few days. When it starts operating critically for those who are in export businesses, they should be able to get financing towards production.

“We also have the policy of import substitution so that for things that we have huge outlays of foreign currency, we are going to invest so that we can reduce the amount of foreign exchange we use to import, and that is why we have given support to the pharmaceutical sector. We have also given them incentives by reducing the taxes on their raw materials.

“In West Africa, Ghana and Nigeria are the two biggest pharmaceutical manufacturers and our pharmaceutical industry has the potential to grow phenomenally to produce drugs for the whole of West Africa.”