Transcript MAKING GHANA SWITZERLAND Latest

MAKING GHANA THE
SWITZERLAND OF AFRICA
What is Switzerland? 3 Aspects.
• The Country of Switzerland
• The Concept of S-W-I-T-Z-E-R-L-A-N-D
• The Practice of S-W-I-T-Z-E-R-L-A-N-D
The country of Switzerland?
Physical Location:
• Situated in the middle of an impregnable Alps
mountain range and populated by almost 7.7
million uniquely DIVERSE inhabitants.
Other UNIQUE characteristics
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centrally positioned with easy access to the
entire Europe and the Middle East.
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equidistant between America and Asia
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meeting point of different cultures, languages
and religions
Switzerland’s Unique Selling
Proposition. Cont’d
• Center of competence and excellence – very quality focused
• Diverse multicultural, confederate and unique democratic practice
• Has the best maintained and developed infrastructure after
Singapore and Finland.
• State of the art telecommunication network
• No other country invests much per capita in tele-communication as
Switzerland,
• Produces the finest chocolate in the world with more than half the
cocao beans produced and imported from Ghana
• Trained labour force with a strong work ethics
• Has no natural resource except its snow-filled mountains
• Headquarters to many international corporations/organizations
Unique Selling Proposition cont’d
Has chosen to produce what the world values high
1. Precision machinery
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microbiology
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hi-tech
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biotechnology
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pharmaceutical
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wrist watches
2. Service
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finance and banking
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insurance
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hospitality
Swiss Finance Sector
1. ‘the safe deposit box’ of the world
2. ‘financial hub of the world’
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the financial sector is the central pillar or hub of the Swiss
economy generating over 11% Swiss GDP and employing
6% of population (2008)
Leading key player in the Swiss financial sector are banks –
core business being asset management.
Switzerland manages 10% of worldwide assets making it
the 3rd largest financial market after USA
(www.swissworld.org)
Switzerland takes the global lead in terms of crossboarder private wealth management- safe deposit box.
Swiss finance sector. Cont’d
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The second key player are the insurers, especially in
the area of re-insurance – 4th largest in the world
The third key player in the financial sector is
currency and commodity trading
Role of the Swiss stock market
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The Swiss stock exchange(SWX) was formed in 1995
The Swiss Stock Exchange (SWX) is the worlds sixth
largest securities exchange and the third largest in
Europe.
SWX has a highly integrated electronic platform
There are no exchange controls in Switzerland.
The Swiss Franc(CHF) is fully backed and is one of
the worlds strongest currencies
Role of the Swiss Stock Market cont’d
• Swiss exchange was the first in the world to
introduce electronic trading.
• The Exchange is operated by a consortium of
150 foreign and domestic banks
• The Exchange will this year(2012) upgrade to a
new fully automated forex trading platform
which will be the most sophisticated in the
world.
UNIQUENESS of Swiss Companies
• Most business are small to medium size
• Almost 99% of businesses have fewer than
250 full-time workers employing about 2/3 of
the Swiss workforce(Business Census,2008)
• The largest company in Switzerland deals in
food - Nestle
• Many companies in are family owned
Factors that attract investors to Switzerland
STRENGHTS
Population/Education
• International,multilingual
• Top rated schools
• High standard of living
Economy
• Competitive business
environment
• Valued for FDI
• Sustainable Industry
Clusters
Source: Ernest&Young,2006 Swiss Attractiveness Survey.
WEAKNESSESS
Economy
• High cost of land
Legal/Political System
Time consuming decision
making process due to
direct democracy
&federalism
• Strong lobbies
• Restrictive environment
protection
• Cartels, market protectors
SWOT Cont’d
STRENGHTS
Legal/Political System
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Very efficient legal system
Protection of free competition and
property ownership
Access to government agencies and
services
Tax System
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Low corporate taxes
Avoidance of double taxation
Lowest value added tax in Europe
Full tax relief for newly established
companies
Infrastructure
• Highly reliable
Timeliness
WEAKNESSESS
Labour
• Lack of international schools
in specific regions
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Core Foundation of Swiss Economic Power
Despite being a multi-cultural, religions and
linguistic country, Switzerland demonstrates a
strong sense of commitment to common
national objectives or a national ideology.
The 3 Objectives are:
1. Security
2. Stability
3. Prosperity
Security and Stability provide essential
The Concept of Switzerland and its
fundamental elements
S–
WI TZERL-
security and stability
wealth and well-being
infrastructure and investment
technology and trade
zeal and zest
education for excellence
research for reliability
Leisure for longevity
Elements (con’td)
A - attractiveness for advancement
N - nationhood
D - diversity and democracy
The above elements of the concept have been
successfully practiced in the (country
ofSwitzerland mainly due to the S-W-I-S-S
factor..
THE S-W-I-S-S FACTOR
S - ervice
W - ith
I - nterest
S - mile &
S - atisfaction
COMPARATIVE Socio -Economic INDICATORS
SWITZERLAND
GHANA
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Procedure to register property - 4
Start up procedure to register
business - 6
Time required to enforce a contract
215 days
Time required to register and secure
right to property -16 days
Time required to complete procedure
to legally operate business -20 days
Time o prepare, file and pay taxes per
year 68 hours
A verage years of formal schooling
received by an adults over 15 yrs
10..5 yrs
Source www.nationmaster.com
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Procedure to register property - 7
Start up procedure to register
business -12
Time required to enforce a contract
552 days
Time required to register and secure
right to property -382 days
Time required to complete procedure
and legally operate business -81 days
Time o prepare, file and pay taxes per
year 304 hours
A verage years of formal schooling
received by an adults over 15 yrs
3.9yrs
What is Unique about GHANA?
GHANA may be described as the;
G-odly
H-ospitable
A-attractive
N-ation in
A-frica
However, Ghana learn to implement the elements of
the concept of SWITZERLAND with an ATTITUDE of
S-W-I-S-S in order to become like Switzerland in
Africa
What GHANA must do RIGHT
Ghana must learn to work on her key elements and
get them right.
These elements are as follows;
G – Governance : leadership, economics, social
and politics
H - Human Resources: Trained ,skilled and
competent workforce
A – Agro-.Industry and Petroleum
N - Natural Resources: maximize benefit by adding
value
A - Attitude :. develop service and strong work
FINANCIAL SECTOR IN GHANA
Role of Financial Intermediaries
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Banks;
Building Societies;
Credit Unions;
Financial adviser or broker;
Insurance Companies;
Life Insurance Companies;
Mutual Funds; or
Pension Funds.
Bureau de Change
Role of Pension funds
Financial Intermediaries can play an important
role in poverty reduction by developing
innovative ways to provide financial services
to the poor so they can improve their
productive capacity and quality of life.
• The rapid growth of pension funds in many
countries, and the stimulus they are providing
to capital markets, both suggest that their
activities as financial intermediaries merit
considerable attention.
Role of SME’s in developed economies
• 93 % of all European enterprises have less
than 10 employees.
• There are 20.5 million enterprises in the
European Economic Area (EEA) and
Switzerland, providing employment for 122
million people. Some 93 % of these
enterprises are micro (0-9 employees), 6 % are
small (10-49), less than 1 % are medium-sized
(50-249) and only 0.2 % are large enterprises
(250+). Source; Observatory of European SMEs 2005/1 Eurorean Comission.)
• Few SMEs invest abroad. A recent survey showed
that only3% of SMEs in Europe have
• subsidiaries, branches or joint ventures in other
countries.
• Governments have a role to play in lowering the
barriers through international negotiations.
Governments can also promote inward foreign
• direct investment which can serve as a vehicle for
SMEs to access international markets indirectly by
joining the supply chains of multinational
enterprises.
BRIDGING THE GAP:AGRIC & FINANCE.
• The population of Sub-Sahara Africa is expected to double
between 2011 and 2050, to be close to 2 billion. Ghana
inclusive.
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This poses a huge food security challenge.
• Ghana has a large area of arable land currently not being
cultivated.
• Ghana has the potential to not only feed its people, but also
to export significant volumes of grains and other agric
products
• The demographic realities show that Ghana’s population is
very young.
Ghana and Agro-industry
• Value addition in agricultural value chains
holds much scope for employment and for
increased incomes both for citizens and for
the national economy and expansion of the
financial sector.
• While the majority of Ghanaians live in rural
areas and depend on agricultural production,
the offer of financial services in rural areas is
inadequate. Financial services are hardly
available in many parts of Ghana
Trends in the Global Stock Market: Implications for
Ghana.
• Globalisation and internationalization of the stock exchange
industry
• Demutualisation of Stock Exchanges
• Merger, Alliances and Consolidation of Exchanges
• Growing reliance of Exchanges on technology-led initiatives
(Internet trading and extension of trading hours)
• Greater focus on the need for better and sounder regulation
• Harmonization and improvement of Clearing and Settlement
Practices
• Proliferation of new financial products
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Effects of changes: Major shift in
investors’ behaviour, informational flows
and institutional set-up
• Investors (retail and institutional) have already developed
global portfolios which they trade around the world and
round the clock
• Investors (retail and institutional) have ways and means to
cross borders at the click of a mouse
• Stock Exchange order books are readily available on the
internet on a real-time basis
• Exchanges are providing different and multiple accesses to
their trading platform.
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Ghana Stock Market: some achievements
• Facilitate privatization process
• Diversified the financial services sector
• Provide listed companies with a platform to raise
long-term capital
• Offer investors’ alternative investment opportunities
• Act as a barometer of overall macro- economic
performance
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Some achievements cont’d
• Attracted foreign capital inflows and increased the
level of foreign exchange reserves
• Sensitize market operators about the importance of
Corporate Governance
• Render companies more accountable to shareholders
• Set the stage for a gradual alignment of local
business practices and standards with international
best practice
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Ghana Stock Market: Challenges
• Liquidity issues
• Absence of an active and well developed domestic
investor base
• Inadequate ICT infrastructure
• Issues of efficiency and real-time availability of
market information
• Corporate Governance practices
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Constraints to Stock: Market Specific Factors
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Inadequate financial literacy
Accounting and Disclosure standards
Fragmented nature of financial services sector
Market depth and breadth
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Proposed Solutions To Improve Ghana’s Finance
Sector
• Implement modern CDS and trading systems
• Foster dynamic trading by providing real-time and
interactive market information flows
• Financial literacy campaign
• Enhance disclosure standards and Corporate
Governance
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Proposed Solutions cont’d
• Lift Exchange Controls
• Promote cross-linking of markets
• Harmonize operational, regulatory and technical
infrastructure
• Promote real integration of internal financial
systems.
• Apply modern ICT solutions
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THANK YOU
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