President Akufo-Addo (middle) with Yofi Grant (3rd left), CEO, GIPC and other government officials after the opening session of the Spark Up Investment Summit
President Akufo-Addo has cautioned facilitating agencies working with the Ghana Investment Promotion Center (GIPC) to protect the enabling environment that has made Ghana an attractive investment destination in the sub-region.
He gave caution at the maiden edition of Spark Up, an annual investment summit being instituted by the GIPC in collaboration with the Ministries of Information, Finance, and Trade and Industry.
According to the President, Ghana has carved a niche for itself as an attractive investment destination that needs to be leveraged to drive in more investments into the country.
He said despite the ravages of the coronavirus pandemic, the government has the blueprint for the revitalisation of the economy but needed more investments that would help accelerate the rebound.
“Government has made deliberate efforts at determining the investment priorities of our country and taken steps to mobilise the necessary resources for the growth of these priority areas. This is because we want to help transform Ghana from being a mere producer and exporter of raw materials to a value-added, industrialised economy that will provide opportunities, jobs and prosperity for all Ghanaians, thereby creating a WISER nation, that is wealthy, inclusive, sustainable, empowered and resilient one,” he said.
This, the President called on the GIPC and its partner agencies, to engender a more constructive interaction with investors in a bid to market the country in areas such as trade and investment, as well as skills and knowledge development to bring home the needed investments.
The President said even though global Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) declined by some 42 per cent, Ghana recorded an FDI inflow totaling $2.65 billion through the GIPC, representing a significant increase over the 2019 FDI value.
He said that the NPP government has a blueprint for the revitalisation of the economy, saying “we have identified the relevant sectors of the economy requiring the needed investments, that will help accelerate the rebound and growth of the Ghanaian economy as was witnessed in the immediate years before the pandemic struck.”
The GH¢100 billion blueprint which has been labelled Ghana Cares or Obaatanpa programme will require some GH¢30 billion of funding from government and GH¢70 billion from the private sector.
In seeking to mobilise the GH¢70 billion from the private sector, President Akufo-Addo said it has become even more important to examine the impact of Foreign Direct Investments on the economy.
“So it is critical that this maiden edition of Spark Up be dedicated to exploring ways of improving the turnaround times and the efficiency with which potential investments are integrated into the Ghanaian economy,” he said.
Present at the summit was the Chief Executive Officer of GIPC, Yofi Grant; Minister for Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah; Deputy Minister for Trade and Industry, Herbert Krapa, Deputy Minister for Finance, Abena Osei-Asare; Minister of State at the Ministry of Finance, Charles Adu Boahen; the United States Ambassador to Ghana, Stephanie Sullivan, and heads of agencies.
On his part as GIPC boss, Mr. Grant said GIPC is working at increasing the country’s Foreign Direct Investment in the medium to long-term by collaborating with policy makers to review, revise and revamp FDI strategies to make them more fit-for-purpose and operationalise policy measures to support value-chain linked FDI so as to boost FDI in the digital economy.
He said in line with this, the GIPC has restructured its operations by establishing the Diaspora Investment Desk to increase diaspora engagement and investments and an Aftercare Division to streamline investor aftercare and encourage reinvestment in key sectors of the country’s economy.
By Charles Takyi-Boadu