The Senior
Partner of AB & David law firm, David Ofosu-Dorte, has predicted that
Africa's food import will increase from $35 million to $110 billion in the next
three years.
"That's food import and
that tells you how much we are sending outside.
"There is no magic wand
about the fact that the dollar to the local currency, whether Cedi, Kwacha,
Naira or Kenyan Shillings, have challenges," he said, adding that food
import was likely to increase further to $150 billion by 2030.
Presentation
Mr. Ofosu-Dorte said this when he presented a paper on Africa and the Global
Economy; New Realities, New Possibilities" at a Citi Tv event organised in
Accra on Monday.
Dubbed “The Cedi Summit”, the
event was held in collaboration with the Institute of Statistical, Social and
Economic Research (ISSER).
In terms of infrastructure
development, Mr. Ofosu-Dorte said the continent needed $1.7 trillion in order
to fill the infrastructure gaps.
Focus
He said fashion, integration, infrastructure, recovery, automation, healthcare
and pharmaceuticals, logistics and supply chain, as well as value addition to
raw materials were areas Africans needed to direct focus.
Among other things, he
explained that an area like agri-food where local foods were packaged could
change the urban imports and reduce the demand for the dollar.
"But there's something
that we overlook. As many as 400 companies of African origin or located in
Africa now cross a million dollar. Seven hundred and fifty of them now have
more than half a billion dollars in terms of annual turnover," he said.
Integration
He said there was the need to look at Africa as a fast integrating continent
and suggested informal integration through music, churches, and banks, aside
from regional economic blocks, the African Union Agenda 2063 and the African
Continental Free Trade Area (AfCTA).
"We should look at the
continent as a fast integrating continent and leverage it," he emphasised.
Africa, he said, unfortunately had also not realised that
there were certain countries that were either showing the way or competing with
it, adding that for instance, Indonesia which previously was like many African
countries, was now far ahead.
In the past seven years, Mr.
Ofosu-Dorte said Indonesia had delivered 29,000 megawatts (MW) of power using
21 dams and that it even wanted to increase that further.
He said many African countries
forgot that the total power consumption of the continent was 154,000 MW which
was equivalent to the total power consumption of Spain.
Steps
Outlining some steps to deal with the crisis, he said that the first was to
maintain the status quo, second, do everything to prevent deterioration, third,
plan for recovery and lastly, take advantage of new openings.
Another area he said that needed to be looked at was in the
area of statistics. He underscored the need for the Ghana Statistical Service,
ISSER and other data collection platforms to be innovative and look out for new
areas of data.
Measurement
"We ought, between Bank of Ghana and Statistical Service, to be measuring
consumer and producer sentiments," he said.
The Chief Economist of Absa
Global, Jeff Gable, said in an interview that everywhere in the world people
were frustrated at the high cost of petrol and food and we're asking for
relieves.
"In that space Ghana is no different from
elsewhere," he said.
The Managing Director of Absa,
Abena Osei-Poku said although the summit would not bring transformation
overnight, it would direct the minds of the main actors to get different
perspectives of the world today and what was in the future.
"With the
cross-fertilisation of ideas, our resources are relocated and operations
redirected in the right way to support the growth of the country", she
said.
Source:graphic.com.gh