[ 2012-04-28 ]

Mills Markets Ghana As An Attractive Investment Destination
Senator John Kerry welcoming Prez Mills to ICCF
event President John Evans Atta Mills has assured
the international business community that Ghana
has many opportunities that make her one of the
most attractive investment destinations in the
world.

'We as a government have ensured that we create
the necessary environment to ensure that investors
have good returns on their investments,' he
affirmed.

President Mills gave the assurance when he
addressed a business luncheon held in his honour
in New York, USA, a statement issued in Accra on
Thursday said .

The luncheon was organised by the highly
influential Business Council of International
Understanding (BCIU), a US think-tank that
provides a platform for Senior Business Executives
to interact with heads of state and governments,
cabinet ministers and senior government
officials.

It was attended by more than 28 leading companies
in the US, some Ghanaian businessmen, Ghana's
envoy to the US and Permanent Representative to
the United Nations.

'Now that Ghana’s economy has been described as
the fastest growing economy in the world, and at a
time oil has been struck, let me be quick to say
that it is our determination to ensure that this
God-given resource becomes a blessing and not a
curse.

'Indeed one of the things which we promised to do
as a government and which we are doing, and you
can find evidence of, is in my State of the Nation
Address given in February, is that we are giving
full account of the revenues that we are deriving
from our oil resource.

Of course, we are also going to be accounting to
the people about how these revenues are being
used.'

President Mills referred to the personal
experiences of many American and other businessmen
concerning the many investment opportunities in
Ghana, saying that 'We want to make sure that you
have a credible judicial system, you have the kind
of labour which will respond to the needs of the
business, that you have a system which will
respond to the very needs of investors'.

President Mills maintained that transparency was
one of the hallmarks of Ghana's business
investments climate, adding that his government
had made sure that the administrative burden that
investors had to carry was lessened.

'So far, we have been able to attract quite a
number of investors, but there is the need for
more and more to come to Ghana. As far as the
human potential is concerned, luckily we have
taken education very seriously. So luckily you may
find when you come to Ghana that getting the right
calibre of people to work with will not be that
difficult.

'We have a number of universities, tertiary
education is being given a pride of place and
therefore, you get a bunch of very eager graduates
who want to learn'.

President Mills affirmed Ghana's belief in
democracy explaining that without the rule of law,
natural justice, respect for the judicial system,
non-selective justice and all, the country could
not move forward.

To the excited investors, he said 'We have made
this choice and we do not intend to go back. This
is because if one looks at the experiences of
other countries that have chosen to go the
opposite way, the results have not been very good
for them.

'We ought to ensure that we are an example to many
of our colleagues in Africa and we believe that as
we go on upholding democracy and showing the rest
of Africa that democracy can be practiced with
tremendous results, many African countries will
decide to join us,' he added.

Admitting that there is no country that can say
that everything is perfect, he said t it was
important, therefore, to recognise one's
difficulties and be able to tackle those
challenges.

Dr Patrick Lukulay, Vice President, Global Health
Impact Programmes, representative of US
Pharmacopeia announced the company's decision to
establish a permanent presence in Ghana, where
other African countries could come and receive
training in quality control medicine as well as
control of the huge problem of counterfeit drugs.

To a question on government's commitment to
helping small and medium enterprises (SMEs) by Mr
James Prusky, Chief Operations Officer of Crecera
Finance Company, President Mills responded that
the SMEs were the backbone of the economy, and
welcomed foreign financial support to make them
stronger and increase their capacities.

The representative of Citigroup Incorporated, Mr
Zubaid Ahmad, Vice Chairman, Institutional Clients
Group described Ghana as a place to do business
and recounted his experience with the Ghana Cocoa
Board.

Mr Dan Markin, a Ghanaian businessman and Chairman
of Ghana Railway Development Authority, urged his
US counterparts to do business in Ghana because
the environment was good and had been enhanced by
the liberalisation of the banking sector for
investors to easily repatriate their profits,
apart from the freedom from executive
interference.

He said the decision by General Electric (GE) to
inject over one billion dollars into Ghana's
railway system was a confirmation of the fine
business opportunities for investors in Ghana.

Mr Markin said the Bank of Ghana was pushing for
American and European banks to come and set up
branches in the country.

Dr Anthony K. Nyame, Chairman of General Capital
Corporation, who had just returned from Ghana with
a business delegation confirmed the fine business
and investment conditions in Ghana and challenged
US investors to venture into the housing, oil and
gas sectors of the economy, where huge investment
opportunities existed.

This is the third time President Mills has been
invited to the forum, which is a model
business-government partnership in the US
Government's National Export Strategy, extremely
active in expanded free trade. It also forges
partnership with multilateral organisations like
the Millennium Challenge Corporation.

Source - GNA

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