Business Analyst - June 7

Tuesday, June 7, 2022
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Policy to regulate special
economic zones in the offing
THE Ministry of Trade and Industry
(MoTI) is in the process of developing
a policy document to
regulate special economic zones
(SEZs) in the country.
SEZ is an area in a country that is subject
to different economic regulations than other
regions within the same country. The economic
regulations of special economic zones
tend to be conducive to—and attract—foreign
direct investment (FDI).
This means a policy on SEZ would help
regulate activities in the zones to enable the
country to harness its benefits by increasing
trade balance, increased investment, job creation
and effective administration.
Workshop
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the
Ghana Free Zones Authority (GFZA), Michael
Oquaye, made this known at a two-day workshop
on the contribution of SEZs to economic
diversification in Africa in the context
of Africa Continental Free Trade Area
(AfCFTA) in Accra on June 3.
The workshop held between June 2 and
3, 2022, was on the theme: “Special Economic
Zones in Ghana as a Tool for Industrialisation
and Diversification”.
It was organised for the dissemination of
the conclusions of the Handbook on SEZs in
Africa: Towards economic diversification
across the Continent, with the aim to share
best practices on special economic zones development
and contribute to the process of
the implementation of the AfCFTA.
The workshop provided a platform for
the diverse stakeholder community to discuss
the role special economic zones can play
in the economic diversification of the Continent
and supporting regional integration.
Site assessment
Mr Oquaye said under the Ghana Economic
Transformation Project (GETP), a site
assessment and selection exercise of Ghana’s
SEZs and Industrial Park programme was
carried out.
This, he said, was done in the context of
the government’s vision to make Ghana the
manufacturing hub of Africa, transforming
the country into a high growth economy capable
of creating decent jobs in significant
numbers, that were widespread and inclusive
enough to achieve equitable growth and
development.
He said the guiding principle underlying
GETP was to promote a strong growth model
that was conducive to economic transformation
and achieve a higher rate of investment
and productivity growth across the economy,
especially in non-resource-based sectors.
He observed that the GETP has the overall
objective of promoting non-natural-resource-based
sectors.
He said this objective was to be achieved
through; improvement in the overall business
enabling environment, as measured by
Ghana’s Ease of Doing Business score.
“Private sector investments leveraged
through project activities, including investment
to develop SEZs and industrial parks
and early-stage or risk financing for SMEs
and start-ups in non-resource sectors.
• Michael oquaye, Ceo, GFZA
Insurance knowledge goes up — Report
A research conducted by the National
Insurance Commission (NIC), has revealed
that about 78 per cent of Ghanaians
have knowledge of insurance.
This is an improvement over the
2020 figure of 60 per cent, which gives
an indication that more Ghanaians are
now exposed to insurance information.
This is coming at a time when insurance
coverage has reached an all
time high of 44.6 per cent which means
that almost half of the population of
Ghanaians have some form of insurance.
Speaking in an interview with the
Daily Graphic, the Commissioner of Insurance,
Dr Justice Yaw Ofori, said the
increased knowledge of insurance was
as a result of measures put in place by
the commission over the last six years.
He said the NIC started a nationwide
sensitisation by establishing an
office in 10 regions of the country.
“We realised our network was not
wide so we decided to extend our operations
nationwide.
“We targeted all the then 10 regions
in the country and we have branch offices
in all these areas,” he stated.
New Insurance Act
He said the commission also worked
on the New Insurance Act which allowed
it to establish an educational
fund.
Dr Ofori said the educational fund
was currently supporting the Ghana Insurance
College (GIC) to build capacity
in the sector.
“We are also working to get insurance
to be studied as part of the courses
in secondary schools and we are
still engaging the appropriate authorities
on this.
“In some of the areas where
we have our offices, we organise
quiz for the students and give
them prizes,” he noted.
He said all these would help in
demystifying what insurance really
was.
Training for agents
The Commissioner of Insurance
also pointed out that the
NIC, through the GIC, had embarked
on a campaign to train
10,000 insurance agents across
the country.
He said this was a two weeks
programme which allowed successful
applicants who pass the
exams to work for insurance companies
as sales agents.
“We have also been working
with the security agencies like
the police, fire service, immigration,
and prisons by providing
some insurance training for their
cadets and we started that about three
years ago,” he stated.
Insurance Perception Index
The NIC commissioned the first
ever public perception, awareness, and
confidence index in 2019 in conjunction
with the German international development
cooperation, GIZ.
In 2020, the NIC proceeded to conduct
the second round of research with
regard to the same indices as a way to
keep track of progress.
The third round,
termed Phase three,
was conducted in
2021.
In general, consumer
confidence,
measured by the
Consumer Confidence
Index (CCI), is
defined as the degree
of optimism about
the state of the economy
that consumers
of services, such as
insurance services,
are expressing
through their activities
of saving and
spending.
When consumers
are confident in their
futures, they tend to
spend money and
drive economic
growth higher.