Accra, Nov. 28, - The First Lady, Mrs. Rebecca Akufo-Addo has
given the assurance that Chinese investments in Ghana will always be safe.
Speaking at a conference to
promote trade relations between Ghana and China at Hunan in the Changsha
Province of China, Mrs Akufo-Addo told the investors to have confidence in
Ghana and invest in its many sectors of the economy.
She touted Ghana’s credentials as
a safe and profitable place for Chinese investors.
The First Lady was addressing the
“2017 Ghana-Hunan Economic and Trade Conference” hosted by the China Council
for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT).
She noted that, Ghana was a
“globally acknowledged democracy” which had changed governments successfully
since 1992 “without causing any dislocations to the political, economic or
social systems of the country.”
Therefore, “all investors are
assured of a stable and peaceful country to invest in,” she said.
Mrs. Akufo-Addo explained that
Ghana had “an assertive Parliament, an independent judiciary and a vibrant
media” and these were “safeguards against unpredictable actions of any one
person or government and further serves as security for the protection of
investment.”
The First Lady said Ghana, as the
second largest ECOWAS economy, was strategically placed to open up new and
additional markets to boost their investment, adding that, ECOWAS has a total
market of about 500 million people.
She said “Ghana’s acclaimed
educational system has ensured that the majority of its work force has the
needed skills that industry requires or where those skills do not exist, the
workers could be easily trained to become productive.”
She also noted that the country
had a generous investor incentive through the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre
(GIPC), free zones enterprise and other institutions, adding that “regardless
of where the investment was, the government had instituted a number of generous
incentives for the investor, depending on the activity or the location of the
investment, to ensure that their investment thrived.”
Mrs Akufo-Addo said agriculture
and agro processing, railways, ports, airports, public housing and real estate
development were areas that were ripe for investment.
She mentioned other priority
areas as the energy sector, especially renewables, as well as infrastructure
sector, including roads, the mining industry, salt, gold, bauxite, iron ore,
tourism, manufacturing and industry, ICT as well as the financial services
sector, especially equity financing, as various options that could be invested
in.
Dr. Millicent DeGraft-Johnson,
Deputy Head of Macroeconomic Research Unit, Ministry of Finance, in a
presentation said the Ghanaian Government’s short to medium-term development
programme, was aimed at providing opportunities for growth and job creation
through the private sector.
She said the Government had
developed concrete reform actions to tackle key challenges to private
investment such as ensuring macroeconomic stability and debt sustainability,
improving the ease of doing business and enhancing access to affordable and
long-term financing and de-risking instruments.
Ghana’s Ambassador to China, Mr
Edward Boateng, in a remark said the summit would go a long way to deepen the
relationship between Ghana and China as well as facilitate investment into the
One-District-One-Factory (1D1F) initiative.
The First Lady later witnessed
the signing of a cooperation agreement on Economy and Trade between CCPIT Hunan
and the AGI and an Agricultural Cooperation Project between the CRI and the
Hunan Hybrid-rice Research Centre.
GNA
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