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Ghana Development: One Way Forward
By afroman1 | March 3, 2009
Long term trend 1: global overproduction of consumer and light capital goods due to the rise of China as factory to the world. Long term trend 2: increased premium attached to agricultural goods that are biased towards naturalness, sustainability and the organic realm. Long term trend 3: export based development centered on light consumer goods (following in the steps of Asian tigers, China etc) cannot scale globally since there is a limit to how much of an import level the US (the one country that made this strategy possible) and other Western counties can support.
Lessons for Ghana: drop the generic and tired mantra of pursuing an export driven mercantile strategy in the vein of the Asian tigers. Develop a targeted strategy that builds on our unique advantages by doing the following.
Focus on our potential in agriculture, location and quality of governance, the last two being key to creating a thriving and productive services sector. In agriculture, aim for a vertically integrated operation for those goods we have a comparative advantage in and target domestic, South to South as well as Western markets. For example, made in Ghana premium microbatch chocolate, fruit preserves and juices as well as industrial starches. Leverage location to become the hub of West Africa for finance and other services. Again to be successful, we will need to upgrade port facilities and long distance roads if we are to make Ghana the premier transshipment point a la Singapore. Build upon our small advantage in governance: minimize crime, cut red tape and eliminate the hassle factor when it comes to doing business.
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