President of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, Ghana (CIMG), Michael Abbiw, says the government benefited from public goodwill and patience in 2025, allowing it time to stabilise the economy and build confidence within the business community.
According to him, the change of government played a significant role in shaping market behaviour, particularly in the early part of the year.
“When you look at the entire market, the change of government also had a lot to do with it. There was a lot more trust that was put on the current government,” he told Kwesi Kwatia on Bottomline on Metro TV on Monday, January 12, 2026.
He explained that businesses deliberately allowed the government time to settle before expecting aggressive spending or policy rollouts.
“We gave them time and space to be able to bring out policies that would help all of us,” he said.
According to him, although there were initial concerns that government spending would begin earlier in the year, businesses adjusted their expectations as authorities held back expenditure.
“One of the things we were watching was the first half year and we thought that let’s say they come in, everything is held on, no expenditure, and we were expecting the government to start spending July, I guess, but they held on,” he stated.
Mr Abbiw said the government’s cautious approach contributed to gradual economic stabilisation towards the end of the year.
“One of the things you get to realize is that we saw a bit of stabilization and there was a gradual stabilization towards the end of the year,” he said.
He noted that the appreciation of the cedi against the dollar late in the year also helped improve confidence among businesses.
“As we were ending the year, you saw the dollar, the cedi appreciating against the dollar. And for the business community, that is good,” he said.
However, he stressed that predictability mattered more than short-term currency movements.
“It’s not more about whether the dollar is going up or down, but it’s really about can we have a stable dollar, can we be able to predict into the future,” he explained.
Mr Abbiw said government success going forward would depend not only on policy design but also on how those policies are communicated and positioned.
“One goes into government, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the person is fully equipped,” he said, adding that capacity building across government institutions was necessary.
Using the proposed 24-hour economy as an example, he said marketing would be critical to attracting both local and international investors.
“How do we sell that 24-hour economy? Not only to us here as Ghanaians, not to the private sector who want to invest within the 24-hour economy, but also to the outside business community,” he asked.
Mr Abbiw said discussions were ongoing to ensure the Brand Ghana agenda is handled professionally rather than politically.
“We seem to have an agreement on the Brand Ghana agenda that going forward we don’t look at Brand Ghana as a political activity either from NPP or NDC, but we look at Brand Ghana from the professional perspective,” he said.
According to him, the plan is for Brand Ghana to be managed in a way that ensures continuity regardless of which political party is in power.
“So Brand Ghana hopefully will now be sitting at CIMG, so that regardless of whichever political party is going to come, we design one agenda and we are able to prosecute that agenda to Brand Ghana out there,” he said.
Mr Abbiw said sustained trust, prudent spending and clear communication would be key for government as it seeks to maintain economic stability and support private sector growth.
