Ghanatodayonline.com News, Politics, Health, Education & More
According to Vice President Bawumia, the global economic system has undergone significant upheaval in recent years. As a result, Africa, particularly Ghana, must make courageous, challenging, and resolute decisions in order to weather the global economic storm.
On Wednesday, October 26, 2022, Dr. Bawumia said, “The combined effects of Covid, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and major disruptions in global supply chains have brought untold economic damage across the world, and require new thinking and positioning, especially as the world eases into the Fourth Industrial revolution.” The two-day Standard Chartered Bank Digital Banking, Innovation and Fintech Festival was taking place in Accra at the time.
“In Ghana, for instance, the rate of inflation has increased by nearly a factor of five between the years of 2019 and present.
Go to Togo, which is right next door; there, inflation has increased by nearly 16 times; in Cote d’Ivoire, it has increased by about 7 times; and in the UK, it has increased by around 8 times.
And this has been accompanied by a very strong dollar, which has caused a significant decline in the value of currencies.
The Chinese Yuan is at its lowest level since 2007, I was informed yesterday.
The UK’s economic position was essentially characterized by Rishi Sunak, the next British Prime Minister, as a severe economic disaster.
“So what we are seeing globally, of course, with the disruption of global supply chains, post COVID, is a major change in what was the status quo before COVID. The global economy as we know it, as it existed, pre-COVID today does not really exist anymore. Emerging market access to the capital markets has been very restricted and may continue to be restricted for the foreseeable future. And more and more we are seeing economies rethinking economic strategies. But there is a clear move towards more self-reliance in economic policy.
“And at the same time this global economic environment is transitioning into the Fourth Industrial Revolution where the digital economy is taking center stage. So as we try to deal with the economic crisis globally, economies also have to re-position themselves to partake in the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” he noted.
In response to the current economic unrest in Ghana, Vice President Bawumia stated that the government was exploring a number of steps to address the issues and maintain fiscal restraint.
He said President Akufo-Addo would speak to the people about such steps in the upcoming days.
“In Ghana specifically, we are dealing with an economic crisis that we have to address in different dimensions. The first and most important, which affects the confidence that we have in the economic system, is to make sure that we have fiscal and debt sustainability. This has been one of the areas where we are having discussions and negotiations with the International Monetary Fund about restoring fiscal and debt sustainability.
“No doubt it is not going to be easy. It will require very bold, difficult, but firm decisions. And I think these are part of the discussions that we’re having with the IMF. And I’m sure once those are concluded, it will be clear that it will not be and it should not be business-as-usual because we have to adjust to the new global and domestic realities,” he added.
Source: Ghanatodayonline.com
