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Survey: Access to finance a threat
to businesses
Accra, July 23, GNA
– Access to finance is still a threat to businesses’ growth
in Ghana, a survey of company Chief Executive Officers has
revealed.
The Global Executive Opinion Survey 2008 conducted by the
Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) among 101 CEOs saw the
majority ranking access to finance as a major issue that
needed to be dealt with.
The Executive Opinion Survey is a major component of the
Global Competitiveness Report of the World Economic Forum (WEF),
which aims to provide a benchmarking tool for policymakers
and business leaders.
It is the first time that Ghana is participating in the
global survey after AGI was contracted by the WEF as a
partner association in March this year.
In the poll CEOs were asked to select up to five challenges
from a menu of 15 and rank these from one to five in order
of importance.
Over 30 CEOs ranked access to finance as number one priority
and this was followed by inadequate supply of
infrastructure, poor work ethics, bureaucracy and
corruption.
The CEOs who took part in the survey cut across a broad
spectrum of companies. They included CEOs of public listed
companies, Ghanaian-owned companies, European companies, as
well as other African companies.
Small, medium and big sized companies also took part in the
survey.
On economic prospects, over 65 per cent of the CEOs said
they were optimistic of enhanced growth but the small and
medium scale enterprises saw more opportunities than the big
ones.
Mr Tony Oteng-Gyasi, President of AGI who presented the
findings of the survey, said over 500 companies in six
regions were invited to participate in the survey but 101
CEOs completed the questionnaire.
He said it was revealing that both domestic and foreign CEOs
agreed that the problem of finance was critical.
Mr Oteng-Gyasi said the survey also showed that more efforts
must be made to retain talented people in the productive
sectors of the economy while companies needed to spend more
money on research and development.
There is also need for online government services as well as
railroads.
GNA
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