President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo says he is committed to building a robust economy that will stand the test of time.

According to the president, the his first term was focused on building a strong foundation that led to the growth of the economy.

Speaking to some Spanish investors at a business meeting on the sidelines of the Focus Africa 2023 conference in Madrid, Nana Akufo-Addo said between 2017 to 2020, his first term in office was spent correcting the fundamentals of the economy which were all pointing in the wrong direction.

“We have, over the period, put in place measures needed to reduce the cost of doing business, improve the business environment, and made the Ghanaian economy not only one of the most business-friendly economies in Africa, but also one of the fastest growing economies in the world between 2017 and 2020,” he said.

“I am sure you have heard of some of my government’s flagship policies of “One District, One Factory”, “One Village, One Dam”, and the programme for “Planting for Food and Jobs”, which I commend to you, as I do areas in water, health, housing, road and rail infrastructure, transport, industry, manufacturing, agriculture, petroleum and gas, the exploitation of our mineral wealth of bauxite, iron ore and gold, renewable energy and ICT growth,” the President added.

A key challenge of the Ghanaian economy, like many other economies in Africa, according to the President, is its infrastructural deficit.

“We are embarking on an aggressive public private partnership programme to attract investment in the development of both our road and railway infrastructure. We are hopeful that, with solid private sector participation, we can develop a modern railway network with strong production centre linkages and with the potential to connect us to our neighbours,” he added.

He intimated that the major programme driving the revival and revitalization of the Ghanaian economy is the one hundred-billion-cedi (GH¢100 billion) Ghana CARES ‘Obaatampa’ Programme, whose main elements include supporting commercial farming and attracting educated youth into commercial farming; and building the country’s light manufacturing sector; developing engineering/machine tools and ICT/digital economy industries; amongst others.