Managing Director of Nestle Ghana, Freda Duplan has said the depreciation of the cedi and high-interest rate has been the company’s major challenge within the first quarter.
She argues that the situation remains a recurring one which managers of the economy must address.
Her reaction is but one of numerous complaints made by business associations about the cedi’s effect on their businesses while complaining about the dwindling of their business due to the high-interest rate.
The business associations have on several occasions also called on the government to put in stringent measures to stabilize the cedi and work on reducing the interest rate at least within the first quarter.
Some currency analysts also warned that the government’s tax cuts would lead to a further depreciation of the cedi should it fail to stem the side effects of the policy.
In an interview with Citi Business News, Madam Duplan said she is hopeful the cedi will stabilize soon.
“The challenges have been different in different ways. I mean our biggest challenge was the exchange rate, for example, the cedi against the forex. Sometimes it’s also things like interest rate I would say. We have very high-interest rate in the country. This is not only today, this has been historical, it has been like that for a while. For example, as much as we help to source local raw materials as much as we can, there is still a good component of our raw materials that are imported. So if the cedi is not stable, it affects us. But we are hopeful it will bounce back.” she said.
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By: Jessica Ayorkor Aryee/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana.