We want investments not aid - Alan tells US investors

The Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Alan Kyeremanten is touting the nation’s investment potentials to American investors urging them to bring in their investments, and also assuring them of much higher returns than anywhere else on the continent.

He explained that the government had shifted its focus from reliance on aid, and trade to search for investments to spur its industrialisation drive to accelerate development in the country, thereby boosting private sector growth in order to generate jobs.

“Ghana is open for business and not just aid and trade because we know we have the potential to make it in style with the assistance from investors such as you in America”.

Mr Kyeremanten who led a high powered government delegation at a special seminar dubbed “Doing Business in Ghana” on the sidelines of the just ended US/Africa Business Summit, organised in Washington D.C. by the Corporate Council on Africa (CCA), a trade association focusing on strengthening commercial relationships between the United States and the African continent.

Accompanied by the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) Mr Yofi Grant, the Executive Secretary of the Ghana Free Zones Board (GFZB), Mr Michael Baafi, and the Chief Executive of Venture Capital Trust Fund, Mr Kwadwo Boateng took turns to make a strong case for Ghana and painted an optimistic picture to support calls for American investors to turn to Ghana to invest.

Mr Kyerematen said: “We have huge investment opportunities in the agricultural sector under a programme we have dubbed, ‘Planting for Food and Jobs’, and also through that we also have the industrialisation agenda where produce from the agriculture sector will see added value before they are exported,” he said.

He said the government was also diversifying the economy by placing emphasis on the exploration of all its mineral resources such as manganese, bauxite and ore among others to serve as additional income sources beside gold and cocoa.

Mr Kyerematen explained that due to the huge capital outlay required for these kinds of investments, government would not want to venture into them directly but create the conducive environment to allow private investors to explore.

“This is why we are asking you to come and invest because through that we can make a meaningful headway to ensure a win for the country while the investors also make the right returns on their investment.”, he said.

Transformation agenda

On government’s transformation agenda, the minister said the government was positioning itself to fully take advantage of the push for greater integration and trade among African countries to help its local businesses grow to produce to meet demand.

For instance, he said, the government was providing a stimulus package for existing companies under financial stress to enable them revive and expand their operations.

“We have introduced what we have called the ‘One District One factory’ policy as part of our industrialisation agenda so that every district will have a factory to go into agro processing to prevent our farm produce from going waste because we will add value to them”.

Mr Kyerematen also mentioned the area of action to develop the petrochemical industry – developing the country’s salt reserves to produce for export on a large scale.

“We need investments in all these areas and I can tell you that, these are all multi-million dollar projects which returns will be in billions of dollars.

Doing business in Ghana

For his part, Mr Grant outlined the measures being taken to push for a one-stop-shop registration of businesses and noted that the systems are being fully automated to ensure faster processing of documents.

Mr Grant said “we are working as a government to improve the tax environment to be more favourable for business because we said we want the economy to be private-sector led”.

“There is nowhere else to do business if not Ghana because the exciting times are here and it’s time for you American investors to move in to leverage the enormous opportunities”, he said Read Full Story