The nation should be manufacturing 60 to 70 percent of its key consumer goods locally by 2030, Universal Merchant Bank’s Chief Executive, Dr. Philip Oti-Mensah, has said, as he challenges business leaders to attach figures and deadlines to an industrialisation agenda that has long been defined by intent rather than outcomes.
He was speaking at the Accra media launch of the 10th Ghana CEO Summit and Expo, scheduled for Thursday, May 28, 2026. The summit, now in its tenth edition, will convene under the theme: ‘Accelerating Ghana’s Economic Transformation: Driving Bold Reforms through Leadership, Technology, and Industrialisation for Sustainable Growth’, a banner which Dr. Oti-Mensah said demanded action, not more aspiration.
He said the measure of transformation was simple; Ghana needed to produce what it consumed and export competitively. Everything else, policy documents, the conference declarations, the strategy papers, was secondary to that test.
“For Ghana, transformation must mean moving from an import-driven economy to an industrialised, production-driven economy. Economic transformation is not a slogan, it is not a policy document, it is not a conference theme. It is a visible, measurable shift in behaviour and outcomes,” he explained.
The call comes as the country’s stabilisation under its International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme has delivered the most serene macroeconomic environment in several years. Inflation has fallen to 3.2 percent, the cedi has stabilised, and the fiscal pressures that choked productive sector investment during the 2022 to 2023 crisis have eased considerably.
Consequently, banks posted combined profit before tax of GH¢21.87 billion in 2025, with analysts pointing to easing macroeconomic conditions and improving credit demand as openings for sustainable growth.
For manufacturers, the window matters. The import dependency that Dr. Oti-Mensah named as Ghana’s industrial failure is partly a financing story as local production has struggled to compete when a weak cedi inflated the cost of foreign-denominated inputs and banks, burdened by bad loans, tightened credit to the productive sectors.
The Bank of Ghana is targeting a reduction in the industry non-performing loan ratio from 18.9 percent to 10 percent by 2026, a threshold that, if met, would expand the lending headroom available to agro-processing, light manufacturing, and value-addition businesses.
Dr. Oti-Mensah did not describe industrialisation as a government only endeavour. The private sector, he argued, had to stop defining itself by what it imported and start measuring itself by what it built.
“Transformation must show up in what businesses actually do daily, not what policy documents say,” he told the assembled executives. Manufacturing’s contribution to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) needed to move, and the movement had to come with clear figures attached, he insisted.
He drew on his own experience at UMB, where he said the bank’s balance sheet had nearly tripled within a year on the back of what he described as execution discipline, as evidence that ambitious targets were achievable when institutions committed to delivery rather than aspiration. “Results do not respect intention. They respond to execution,” Dr. Oti-Mensah said.
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