Vice President Aliu Mahama on Wednesday said government would help execute the proposal to establish a permanent consultation between it and the private sector to exchange views on the economy before the annual budget was finalised.

The proposal was made by Mr Kwesi Abeasi, Chief Executive of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) at an awards ceremony in Accra to re-launch the membership listing of Ghana's top 100 companies.

Addressing the dignitaries, including the Speaker of Parliament, the Chief Justice, Council of State Members and a cross-section of the business community, Alhaji Mahama lauded the proposal, saying, it would enable members of the Club to share their "rich ideas and experiences" with public officials in the planning of the economy and national policy formulation.

The Vice President said he was happy that GIPC was taking steps to develop a one-stop facility and reviewing the law for the smooth operation of the private sector.

The Ghana Investment Promotion Centre launched the listing in 1998 to provide reliable information on corporate industry performance and to serve as a forum for companies to break the culture of silence about their operations.

The selection criteria are based on companies' volume of sales and turnover, net assets, number of employees, profit per employee and net profit, among others.

Ashanti Goldfields Company was adjudged the first in the listing. It registered the highest turnover, pre-tax profits and the number of employees.

The Vice-President reiterated government's commitment to providing a conducive macro-economic environment, peace and good leadership, which were critical for the country's development and for the private sector to perform well.

"Our determination is that Ghanaian entrepreneurs should play a leading role in every department of Ghana's economic development," he said, and added that for the first time the business community had a friendly and trustworthy government ready to work and to make them succeed.

"You have a government that is largely made up of former businessmen and women; people who came from your fold to assume the mantle of leadership," he said.

"The President ...was a businessman. I was a businessman. And many of our colleagues in government today, were in one way or the other on their own in business and consultancy work."He underscored the important contribution that industries had made despite the numerous challenges they faced and reminded them of the pivotal role they had to play in the resuscitation of the ailing economy.

The Vice-President expressed the hope that the economic conditions next year would make the playing field more levelled to make competition among the firms more exciting. Mr Kwamena Bartels, Minister for Private Sector Development, said government would remove the bottlenecks that impeded the private sector to enable it re-direct the country's economic prospects.

He assured the business community of the supply of an efficient and reliable energy at low cost to enable them to carry on their operations at reduced costs.

Mr Abeasi said since the first publication of the listing, competition among companies had increased tremendously.

He said the GIPC Act was being reviewed to reflect global trends and to make it a one-stop shop by next year, explaining that the change would enable GIPC to co-ordinate the flow of government investment and those of other investment attracting agencies.