France, Ghana move to renew ties

Ghana and France on Friday took steps to renew their bilateral ties and to explore areas of economic interest to both countries.

To that end, the Government of Ghana has given an assurance that it would remove all bottlenecks that hindered the smooth flow of transactions, it would also revisit areas of mutual interest that were established or initiated before the before the now ruling Government of the National Democratic Congress lost power in the year 2000.

Consequently, President John Evans Atta Mills has reassured the French investor community that a number of opportunities existed in the agriculture, oil and gas as well as roads and transport industries.

The President gave the assurance at a meeting with a French business delegation led by Madame Anne–Marie Idrac, French Minister of State for Foreign Trade, at the Castle, Osu in Accra.

He underscored the need to strengthen relationship between the two countries and other development partners to address challenges posed the global economic crisis.

President Mills said France had been a useful partner in Ghana's economic development and stressed the needed to strengthen ties between the two countries.

The President assured France of Government's support, saying Government would ensure honesty, transparency and the rule of law, and make the laws of the land work

He said the picture of challenges so far identified in the macro-economy should cause for worry, and called for support and cooperation from the development partners to create the required resilience in the economy.

Madame Idrac commended Ghana for successfully managing her transition.

She noted that bilateral socio-economic relations with Ghana had increased in recent times to about 15 million euros and indicated that it was the wish of French President Nikolai Sarkozy for France to increase its ties with Africa.

GNA