Accra, Sept. 8, GNA - The Private Sector's response to the improved business environment in terms of growth and productivity is critical to the success of various Government initiatives aimed at enabling the sector to play a catalytic role in the development of the country, a Consultant said on Friday.

The Reverend Kwabena Yeboah-Duah the Consultant, therefore, urged private sector operators to capitalize on the recent high ratings of Ghana as one of the best investment climates in Africa to promote their businesses.

He said various Government programmes for the Private Sector would come to nought if the operators within the sector did not grasp the opportunities they provided to enhance their performance. Rev. Yeboah-Duah was speaking at a day's workshop organized by the Private Enterprise Foundation (PEF) to review indicators for monitoring the Private Sector Development Strategy (PSDS).

The PSDS is a five-year roadmap (2004-2008) for the Private Sector designed to create conducive business environment and to ensure that the market systems both domestic and external operated better.

Its goals are to enhance Ghana's position in global and regional markets and to improve competence and capacity at the firm level. He said the laudable aims of the PSDS would only materialize when stakeholders played their respective roles well while attempts were made to review and eliminate key barriers to good business investment. As a first step, Rev. Yeboa-Duah called for a change in national attitudes that fostered Private Sector development through conscious attention to patronising local products, cultivating the savings culture to promote investment and to kill the spirit of over-dependence on cultural safety nets that over-tasked business growth.

Dr Osei Boeh-Ocansey, Director-General of PEF, said the main purpose of the PSDS was to provide an enabling environment where businesses could operate competitively and also to stimulate the Private Sector to take risks, innovate and diversify.

He expressed the hope that the views from Private Sector stakeholders on the indicators for monitoring the PSDS would contribute to the development process of the country.