Vice President Dr Bawumia with Dr Gerd Muller (left) and a German official
Germany has indicated its readiness to provide fresh funding from its private sector to assist businesses in Ghana and help government achieve its ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ vision.
Dr Gerd Muller, Federal Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development, who made this known yesterday in Accra during the opening of the 3rd German African Business Summit (GABS) emphasised: “In Germany, we are sending new assistance of a fresh start and support from our private sector.”
“With the development in our investment programme, development in our investment front, through the development of African business network, we are bringing African and German companies together for successful economic development. We need such efforts to strengthen democratic institutions and rule of law.”
Noting that the most important basis for investors is legal certainty and reliable contracts, he said Ghana has made important progress in the fight against corruption over the last years, which is very important for investors.
Huge German Support
“Germany’s policymakers and business community stand by you. Our president, and our chancellor and today’s conference approve of that. Along Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal, you are a West African partner country for us. I believe that German investors are becoming more interested in Ghana.
“At present, 80 German companies are directly represented in Ghana. Our goal is to increase the number from 80 to 200 companies in Ghana. That is why we are opening a regional office in Accra.
“We are increasing official development funding because economic development requires stability and reliability. We are committed to fair trade and development of fair supply chains,” Dr Muller stated.
Process raw materials
Dr Muller said more processing of Africa’s raw materials, including Ghana’s coffee, cocoa, cotton and cashew, must be done locally before they are exported.
“These should not be shipped to Europe as cheap commodities. These should be processed here for the million chain development that brings income. We also need fair international taxation and transparency rules.
“It’s unacceptable that billions of dollars are lost in African countries each year to illicit growth. And the billions of dollars are lost by African governments because international corporations ship their profits to their countries,” he indicated.
Praises Government
He said Ghana’s new government had made impressive progress in the economic front by registering the highest growth rates in Africa – 8.5 per cent, adding that Ghana is one of the fastest growing economies in Africa.
“Ghana has a stable democracy. Your country is a partner country for Germany. Ghana has a lot of potential in agriculture,” he asserted.
Achievements By Government
Vice President Dr Mahamadu Bawumia, who officially opened the conference, in a speech, enumerated steps taken by government to grow the country’s economy.
Noting that Cabinet had just passed an auto policy framework for all investors in the auto industry, he said: “We also want to do pharmaceuticals and other inroads and so there is a lot of opportunity in the industrial sector, the oil and gas area. By the way Ghana has just found new reserves of oil and Aker field, and we expect to double our oil production in the next few years which again would provide opportunities for a lot of the downstream manufacturing of fertilisers and so on that we want to see. There are other opportunities in the petrochemical space. So we are making a lot of progress in many areas to grow this economy.”
German Model
Dr Bawumia disclosed thatgovernment wants Ghana to pursue the German model of vocational education.
“We want investors to understand that we are trying to build a Ghana that in the next three years will be quite a transformed economy,” he asserted.
By Samuel Boadi