- “No Matter the Cost”: AGI CEO Backs Currency Stabilisation, Urges Shift to Productive Credit for Industry
Ghana’s private sector has offered a blunt verdict on the country’s recent macro stabilisation drive: it was unavoidable. Seth Twum Akwaboah, Chief Executive of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), said the strengthening and relative stability of the cedi was a necessary, even if costly, reset for an economy that had been rattled by uncertainty and collapsing confidence.
“We were in crisis, the confidence level was so low, people investing their own resources became an issue. There was so much uncertainty in the system that it required that level of stability,” Mr. Akwaboah said in remarks on Channel One TV’s Quarterly Economic Outlook programme.
His comments capture a growing mood among manufacturers and import-dependent firms that the headline recovery narrative is only credible if the currency anchor holds. In the private sector’s calculus, cedi stability is not a technocratic win; it is the precondition for planning, pricing, and committing capital in a market that only some months and a year earlier was defined by inflation shocks, currency swings and policy anxiety.
Mr Akwaboah said Ghana’s economy passed through a period of deep turmoil during which both business and consumer confidence deteriorated sharply. The result, he argued, was paralysis: investment decisions slowed as uncertainty around inflation, the exchange rate and policy direction made it difficult for companies to commit resources.
For industry, the exchange rate is the transmission belt of crisis. Ghana’s production base remains heavily exposed to imported fuel, food, machinery and industrial inputs making currency volatility a direct driver of costs, pricing and household inflation. In that setting, currency stabilisation becomes the quickest way to reset expectations in the market and restore a measure of predictability for firms trying to manage inventories, contracts and working capital.
Mr Akwaboah’s argument is also a warning against complacency: in an economy where pricing is rapidly repriced through the currency, stability is fragile and can be reversed by renewed speculation or a loss of policy credibility.
He said that in recent months, the foreign exchange market has experienced a reduction in speculative pressure, which is one of the more important changes. During the worst instability, expectations of continued depreciation led to hoarding behaviour, widened spreads in the parallel market, and created a self-reinforcing loop that hurt “real” trade and production demand. The recent relative stability, he said, has helped weaken that speculative dynamic and allowed “real market players” importers, manufacturers and traders, to operate with greater certainty.
The AGI chief also pointed to the central bank’s role. He commended the Bank of Ghana for how it has calibrated monetary policy and attempted to manage inflation through interest rate adjustments, arguing that policy actions have eased conditions compared with the peak of the crisis period even if borrowing costs remain a persistent constraint for industry.
That caveat matters. For manufacturers, stability without credit is not recovery; it is simply a pause in the damage. Mr Akwaboah said the next phase of Ghana’s rebound should be judged by whether financial conditions translate into real investment in production rather than remaining concentrated in consumption or short-term trade financing.
He made the case for more lending to manufacturing to support industrial expansion, job creation and value addition a long-running private sector complaint that credit is frequently priced and structured for quick turnover rather than long-horizon productivity.
The implication is a shift in the private sector’s demands. First was stability an insistence that the economy needed a credible anchor “no matter the cost”. Now comes the harder test: whether macro stabilisation can be converted into a growth model built on productive credit allocation, domestic value chains and sustained investment.
For policymakers, the message from industry is clear. The cedi’s calm has bought time and restored a measure of confidence. The political and economic question is whether that window is used to deepen credibility and to ensure that the financial system funds production, not just survival.
