For the second time in two years, the private sector has expressed high confidence in the prospects of the economy. Out of the 451 chief executives and top management staff members of small, medium and big companies in major sectors of the economy interviewed by the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) in its annual Business Climate Survey (BCS), 57 per cent expressed a high (good) confident level in the economy for the next 12 months, about 24 per cent said their confidence level was fair, while less than 10 per cent said they had a poor confidence level. However, the countrywide respondents in the survey mentioned stiff competition from imported goods as the second most challenging issue facing the country's manufacturing sector, coming obviously after the load-shedding programme. The sectors captured in the survey are manufacturing, services, trade, tourism and other industries lumped under productive activities such as mining and construction. Business Climate Surveys are surveys in which chief executive officers are asked to give their assessment of the performance for the past year and their expectations for the following year. They can judge the situation as 'good', 'fair' or 'poor'. The respondents were presented with questions on the re-denomination of the cedi, estimated effects of the National Load-shedding Exercise and how to make the country's tax administration more effective, among other issues. Last year's survey was sponsored by GTZ, the German technical co-operation, but the AGI this year has sought to gradually reduce and phase out the donor dependence and, therefore, roped in local sponsors such as Ecobank, IPMC and Zamil Steel. According to the report, which the Daily Graphic sighted, although the business confidence was high, it represented a slight dip from last year's 69 per cent, while the percentage of respondents who thought their businesses would perform well also reduced slightly from last year's figures. The business community also cited access to land as a major challenge to their operations. A large chunk of the respondents repre¬senting 87 per cent said the load-shedding exercise had a zero effect on job cuts with only three per cent reporting that between five and 10 per cent job losses occurred in their companies. The private sector also wanted a more simplified tax code in the country to make it less cumbersome. An overwhelming 58 per cent of the respondents preferred a simplified tax code to a fast-track while more than a quarter (36 per cent) said they wanted to see better qualified staff in tax administration. Currently, there is a multiplicity of taxes and payers sometimes confuse their way around and mostly have to engage tax consultants. On the re-denomination of the cedi, a little more than a quarter said it was excellent, more said it was good, with only two per cent writing the exercise off as poor. On the whole, the BCS captured that three-fourths of the companies were prepared and had no transitional management problems, with 75 per cent saying it was a worthy exercise. Some economic analysts, who asked not to be named, told the Daily Graphic that the slight decline in the business confidence in the economy attributable to the prolonged load management exercise. They said it was, therefore, important for the government to provide the private sector, particularly the manufacturing sector, as well as the general public with up-to-date information on the efforts and measures they were putting in place to resolve the energy problem. The analysts said competition from imported products was the only indicator that moved up from last year's position, showing how crucial it required an attention. "This is becoming more critical and is an area which requires quick government intervention," said one of the analysts. Since access to land was also a major challenge the private sector, the analysts called for the hastening of efforts toward migrating from the deeds registration regime into a land title registry. The economic analysts said the country’s tax code was too cumbersome and multifarious with many payment points and obligations that left people often confused. They said tax reliefs were also scattered and that there was the need to harmonize most of the different regimes. Source: Daily Graphic