President Akufo-Addo has urged chief executive officers (CEOs) of leading Ghanaian and multinational businesses operating in the country to help in the transformation of the country’s economy.

According to him, the business operators should contribute their quota to complement the effort of government to transform the lives of the citizenry.

He said: “You in business and we in government should help each other. . . . so that we can guarantee our people a better standard of living than what they have now”.

Speaking at a meeting with the CEOs at the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) towers in Tema to ascertain how the activities of government is impacting on the business operators as part of his tour of the Greater Accra Region, the President appealed to the CEOs to ensure they bridge the gap between private operators and government in the interest of economic growth.

He believes that an effective market economy will be the surest way to develop and market the country.

The President indicated that all the leading policies his government is introducing are to strengthen the private sector to thrive.

According to him, there are challenges confronting some of the reforms his government has brought on board, but there are steps to address them for social development.

He therefore asked the CEOs to consider taking steps to find a way of improving their performance to become better by dealing with the challenges in order to make the system work better.

For his part, the Director General of the GPHA noted that the introduction of the Joint Inspection and the Paperless Port Clearance System has helped to deal with a lot of delays and frustration at the ports and increased revenues.

He noted that his outfit had seen much improvement in the exportation of cargo at the ports compared to two years back as a result of the policy direction of government to create an enabling environment for businesses to thrive.

According to him, the business direction of government has resulted in 11 per cent increase in the exportation of cargo compared to the record of 2016 and a whopping growth of 25 per cent in 2018 from 5, 68, 317 metric tonnes in 2017 to 6, 330, 336 tonnes in 2018.