Ghana offers a peaceful place for investment - Iddrisu

Ghana's vibrant and diversified market economy, general peace in the country and matured democracy make it the best business friendly and fertile destination for investors, Ghana’s Communications Minister, Haruna Iddrisu, told participants at this year’s Annual Investment Meeting (AIM) in Dubai.

“I therefore call on the business community of the world to collaborate with their Ghanaian counterparts to take advantage of these opportunities,” the minister stressed.

The Annual Investment Meeting (AIM Conference) works as a platform for high level officials, the world’s renowned industrialists, investment experts and leading financial powerhouses to discuss economic governance, strategic expansion and sustainability.

Established as the new staple for foreign trade and Foreign Direct Investment, AIM attracts a mix of high profile government officials, private asset owners and project promoters from across the globe.

The event proposes a diverse yet much focused set of features which include conferences, one-on-one meetings, ministerial networking roundtable, workshops, country presentations and exhibitions.

The AIM exhibition offers a large array of investment opportunities from local, regional & international private sector companies as well as foreign government approved project showcases.

In a statement to the media in Accra, the President of the Ghana Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Mr Seth Adjei Baah, who accompanied the communications minister to the conference, also called on Ghanaian businesses to take advantage of the existing opportunity and participate in international investment conferences in order to add more value to the country’s economy.

According to him, many of these business fora and conferences target fast transforming economies, emerging countries and industries with the most anticipated growth factor and will therefore enhance their potential by providing a strategic platform that delivers ‘ready-to-invest’ showcases and ‘how-to-invest’ methodologies.

Mr Adjei Baah stressed that AIM was the world’s first emerging markets FDI-focused event to offer a perfect blend of trade fair and intellectual features aimed at enriching institutional, corporate and individual investors, who participate, with a comprehensive set of guidelines for their future investment decisions in high growth regions.

During the AIM country presentations, Ghana’s Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration Minister, Alhaji Muhammad Mumuni, introduced case studies covering developmental initiatives, real-time investment opportunities, foreign trade policies, financing options and FDI statistics in the country.

The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre, (GIPC), George Kwame Aboagye, informed delegates of opportunities in agriculture, livestock, tourism, energy, infrastructural development and solid waste management.

According to him, with the kind of labour that responds well to the changing trends in business, expanding infrastructure and above all very stable political and economic environment, the GIPC is ever prepared to assist in the development of any specific trade and investment requirements between Ghana and the rest of the world.

The Deputy General Manager of Saif & Jos Ltd, Dr Mohammed Kassem Alnami, noted the number of memorandum of understandings and cooperation agreements that resulted from the discussions, meetings and networking prove that the AIM congress was indeed a winning formula.

In her opening speech at the forum, Sheikha Lubna Bint Khalid Al-Qassimi, the Minister of Foreign Trade of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), quoted the International Monetary Fund's world economic growth forecast of 3.5 percent in 2012 amid a 'breadth of optimism,” and pointed out that riding this wave of newly discovered hope, emerging economies are slated to outperform projected forecasts as they keep benefiting from the continuous disruption to global capital flows.

Ghana was represented by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Ministry of Communications, Ghana Investment Promotion Centre, Ghana Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Ghana Free Zones Board and Saif and Jos Ltd.