Economy
Interview: Digital economy essential for creating sustainable jobs in Africa: Ghanaian minister – Xinhua | English.news.cn – Xinhua
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Ghanaian Communication Minister Ursula Owusu-Ekuful speaks during an interview with Xinhua in Aswan, Egypt, on Dec. 12, 2019. The digital economy provides an opportunity for African countries to transform their economies and create skillful jobs, Owusu-Ekuful said in a recent interview with Xinhua.(Xinhua/Ahmed Gomaa)
by Marwa Yahya
ASWAN, Egypt, Dec. 25 (Xinhua) — The digital economy provides an opportunity for African countries to transform their economies and create skillful jobs, Ghanaian Communication Minister Ursula Owusu-Ekuful said in a recent interview with Xinhua.
“Many conflicts in Africa are fueled by poverty, inequality and exclusion. With technology, we have a chance of providing more opportunities for people to get sustainable jobs in health, education, agriculture, trade and commerce sectors,” Owusu-Ekuful said.
Terming technology as an enabler and accelerator, the minister said “access to the internet data and communication should be treated like water and electricity utilities.”
“We can’t leave our young people, who breathes technology, behind,” she added, explaining if the youth feel excluded, or have no opportunity for the future, they will get involved in antisocial activities, which may fuel conflicts.
Developing the banking sector in some African countries like Kenya by revolutionizing digital financial services is an example of embracing technology and utilizing it to create more opportunities for our youth, she reiterated.
However, Owusu-Ekuful said “many innovative solutions that young Africans have developed are just waiting for investors to help them to take it to the markets.”
She stressed on the role of the governments in providing an enabling and regulatory environment, and the frame works that would be “the key to unlocking the potential of African youth.”
It’s the right time for African countries to allocate more funds for the digital infrastructure, she said.
So broadband, fiber connectivity and access to electricity and to the skills that will enable them to use this infrastructure are also critical, she emphasized.
“Africa within the next 20 years with our youthful population will provide the workforce for the rest of the world,” said the minister.
Commenting on some concerns of losing jobs if work depends greatly on technology, the minister said “I think that some jobs will be lost. Many more will be created if they have the right skills.”
So, “the emphasis for us is on providing them with quality education and the digital skills to enable them to succeed,” she stressed.
Technology is great for those who have skills, Owusu-Ekuful said, noting that “there is a transition from the old way of doing things to the new exciting way of doing things. And many more jobs which were unheard of a few years ago are now being created.”
She highlighted while some traditional labor-intensive occupations, jobs will be lost, the young people will acquire new skills that they need to succeed.
“I believe that only technology will help Africa leapfrog and it is in our interest to invest in that because governments can’t do it alone without the private sector and foreign investments,” added Owusu-Ekuful.
She reiterated that technology is a key factor for promotion of the African Union’s 2063 Agenda which is a strategic framework for the socio-economic transformation of the continent over the next 50 years.
She highlighted women in Africa still have a long way to go, but increasingly are pushing forward the boundaries.
For women, they can work for better flexible time and deliver the results through communications and technology, without leaving home, so that they can take care of children and still deliver according to the deadlines, she said.
The same for the young people who can get included in any digital work. “With technology, we can energize and accelerate every sector and that is what makes it so pivotal.”
“Africa doesn’t just have to be a consumer of technology produced elsewhere,” she added, pointing out Africa is rich with a huge market waiting to be discovered.
“Investing in the infrastructure and the people of the continent will ensure that those men and women take part in the development of our continent without exclusion that destroys the continental potentials and drags it into conflicts,” she added.
Economy
Opinion: Canada's economy has stagnated despite Trudeau government spin – Financial Post
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Growth in gross domestic product (GDP), the total value of all goods and services produced in the economy annually, is one of the most frequently cited indicators of economic performance. To assess Canadian living standards and the current health of the economy, journalists, politicians and analysts often compare Canada’s GDP growth to growth in other countries or in Canada’s past. But GDP is misleading as a measure of living standards when population growth rates vary greatly across countries or over time.
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Federal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland recently boasted that Canada had experienced the “strongest economic growth in the G7” in 2022. In this she echoes then-prime minister Stephen Harper, who said in 2015 that Canada’s GDP growth was “head and shoulders above all our G7 partners over the long term.”
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Unfortunately, such statements do more to obscure public understanding of Canada’s economic performance than enlighten it. Lately, our aggregate GDP growth has been driven primarily by population and labour force growth, not productivity improvements. It is not mainly the result of Canadians becoming better at producing goods and services and thus generating more real income for their families. Instead, it is a result of there simply being more people working. That increases the total amount of goods and services produced but doesn’t translate into increased living standards.
Let’s look at the numbers. From 2000 to 2023 Canada’s annual average growth in real (i.e., inflation-adjusted) GDP growth was the second highest in the G7 at 1.8 per cent, just behind the United States at 1.9 per cent. That sounds good — until you adjust for population. Then a completely different story emerges.
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Over the same period, the growth rate of Canada’s real per person GDP (0.7 per cent) was meaningfully worse than the G7 average (1.0 per cent). The gap with the U.S. (1.2 per cent) was even larger. Only Italy performed worse than Canada.
Why the inversion of results from good to bad? Because Canada has had by far the fastest population growth rate in the G7, an average of 1.1 per cent per year — more than twice the 0.5 per cent experienced in the G7 as a whole. In aggregate, Canada’s population increased by 29.8 per cent during this period, compared to just 11.5 per cent in the entire G7.
Starting in 2016, sharply higher rates of immigration have led to a pronounced increase in Canada’s population growth. This increase has obscured historically weak economic growth per person over the same period. From 2015 to 2023, under the Trudeau government, real per person economic growth averaged just 0.3 per cent. That compares with 0.8 per cent annually under Brian Mulroney, 2.4 per cent under Jean Chrétien and 2.0 per cent under Paul Martin.
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Canada is neither leading the G7 nor doing well in historical terms when it comes to economic growth measures that make simple adjustments for our rapidly growing population. In reality, we’ve become a growth laggard and our living standards have largely stagnated for the better part of a decade.
Ben Eisen, Milagros Palacios and Lawrence Schembri are analysts at the Fraser Institute.
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Economy
Federal budget is about ensuring fair economy for ‘everyone’: Trudeau – Global News
Delivering remarks to his Liberal cabinet during a caucus meeting on Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau emphasized that the newly-announced federal government is intended to help create a fair economy for “everyone” in Canada, particularly those from Millennials and Gen Z.
Economy
Russia to grow faster than all advanced economies says IMF – BBC.com
An influential global body has forecast Russia’s economy will grow faster than all of the world’s advanced economies, including the US, this year.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects Russia to grow 3.2% this year, significantly more than the UK, France and Germany.
Oil exports have “held steady” and government spending has “remained high” contributing to growth, the IMF said.
Overall, it said the world economy had been “remarkably resilient”
“Despite many gloomy predictions, the world avoided a recession, the banking system proved largely resilient, and major emerging market economies did not suffer sudden stops,” the IMF said.
The IMF is an international organisation with 190 member countries. They are used by businesses to help plan where to invest, and by central banks, such as the Bank of England to guide its decisions on interest rates.
The group says that the forecasts it makes for growth the following year in most advanced economies, more often than not, have been within about 1.5 percentage points of what actually happens.
Despite the Kremlin being sanctioned over its invasion of Ukraine, the IMF upgraded its January predictions for the Russian economy this year, and said while growth would be lower in 2025, it would be still be higher than previously expected at 1.8%.
Investments from corporate and state owned enterprises and “robustness in private consumption” within Russia had promoted growth alongside strong exports of oil, according to Petya Koeva Brooks, deputy director at the IMF.
Russia is one of the world’s biggest oil exporters and in February, the BBC revealed millions of barrels of fuel made from Russian oil were still being imported to the UK despite sanctions.
Away from Russia, the IMF downgraded its forecasts across Europe and for the UK this year, predicting 0.5% growth this year, making the UK the second weakest performer across the G7 group of advanced economies, behind Germany.
The G7 also includes France, Italy, Japan, Canada and the US.
Growth is set to improve to 1.5% in 2025, putting the UK among the top three best performers in the G7, according to the IMF.
However, the IMF said that interest rates in the UK will remain higher than other advanced nations, close to 4% until 2029.
The group expects the UK to have the highest inflation of any G7 economy in 2023 and 2024.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said the IMF’s figures showed that the UK economy was turning a corner.
“Inflation in 2024 is predicted to be 1.2% lower than before, and over the next six years we are projected to grow faster than large European economies such as Germany or France – both of which have had significantly larger downgrades to short-term growth than the UK,” he said.
Conflict in the Middle East
Economists at the IMF warned that if the Israel-Hamas conflict escalates further in the Middle East it could lead to rising food and energy prices around the world.
Continued attacks on ships in the Red Sea and the ongoing war in Ukraine could also affect the so far “remarkably resilient” global economy, it said.
A potential spike in food, energy and transport costs would see lower-income countries hardest hit, it added.
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