Nigeria has recently emerged as Ghana’s biggest economic partner, contributing to over 60 per cent of Ghana’s foreign investment. But the Ghanaian government has sought to attract other foreign investments into the country, both to diversify investments and bolster economic growth.
According to reports, the height of Nigerian investment in Ghana rose with the entrance of communications giant, Globacom, along with some other companies, into the Ghanaian market.
The Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) has called on Nigerians to take advantage of available investment opportunities in several sectors, i.e., agriculture and agro-processing; fish processing; sports, Leisure and Infrastructure; transport; infrastructure, power and tele-communications, among others.
International investments
Parallelly, the Ghanaian economic sector has targeted other local and foreign investors, including chambers of commerce and industry, regional and multinational corporate bodies, oil and gas companies, banks and financial institutions as it seeks “to harness the business opportunities that are abound in Ghana,” indicated the marketing and public relations officer of The Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC), Mr. Edward Ashong-Lartey.
The 2010 International Business Events Management (IBEM) conference, an international business event themed; “Investing and Growing Your Business in Ghana – Challenges and Opportunities”, is expected to converge potential investors in the west African country in March.
A natural Ghana-Nigeria collaboration
Mr. Edward Ashong-Lartey also assured a group of Nigerians in Lagos last week that Ghana would discuss possible areas of further collaboration with Nigerian investors and the kind of incentives that will promote investment and business relations between both countries. For him, Nigeria’s technical capacity and experience in manpower are relevant to the development of Ghana’s nascent sectors, especially oil and gas.
“Talk about the population, the land mass, abundant natural resources, technocrats and so on. Already, Nigeria is seriously playing active role in Ghana’s economy. Government would harness the opportunity that abounds in the discovery of and exploration of oil in the country to woo and encourage would-be investors. All expectations of investors are assured and would not be dashed,” Ashong-Lartey stated.
Challenges
Despite the lure of the investment friendly Ghana, Mr. Edward Ashong-Lartey warned that the country was currently experiencing some challenges in the areas of security, high interest rates, bank charges and inadequate power generation [ 1,850-mega watts) that may discourage investors, but noted that the government was working seriously on ways to address the issues.
Nonetheless, six foreign companies have indicated interest to use gas to produce energy with the hope of boosting Ghana’s power supply before the end of 2010.
