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The Ghana Netherlands Chamber of Commerce & Culture (GHANECC) has been transitioned into Ghana Netherlands Business & Culture Council (GNBCC).

GNBCC which was officially launched on Tuesday in Accra was as a result of a strong collaboration between the former GHANECC and the Netherlands African Business Council (NABC).

Addressing dignitaries from the Ghanaian and Dutch business communities, acting Ambassador of the Netherlands to Ghana, Caecilia Wijgers said “GHANECC and NABC are merging efforts, networks and activities into the GNBCC to represent business interests of both Ghanaian and Dutch companies while working closely together with the Embassy of the Kingdom of The Netherlands in Ghana.

In line with its objective, Madam Wijgers said GNBCC will support corporate entities to perform their operations seamlessly by making the requisite regulatory, financial and business-related information available to them.

“GNBCC takes completely Netherlands Embassy’s perspectives; we are about policy change from aid to trade and we believe that the private sector plays important role in sustainable environment here in Ghana in another manner, especially when economic times are hard.

“We are here to help the private sector businesses to develop and to do business at the same time. The Dutch are innovators and we like Public Private Partnership (PPP), this means that there will be many opportunities for both Ghanaian and Dutch businesses through the Dutch financial instruments”, she affirmed.

Commenting on Ghana’s recent deal with the International Monitory Fund (IMF), Ambassador Wijgers noted that she was particularly pleased with the deal hoping that it would help the medium term growth rebound as well stabilize the cedi over the major trading currencies.

On his part, President of GNBCC, Victor Rutgers, stressed that GNBCC would foster vibrant economic partnership that exist between the Netherlands and Ghana by facilitating and building upon business relationships to the benefit of both Ghana and the Netherlands.

Vice President of Ghana, Kwesi Amissah-Arthur who was the guest of honour in an address admitted that due to some pressures that occurred in 2012 there have been physical imbalances in the Ghanaian economy leading to the fast depreciation of the cedi.

However the vice president mentioned that recent agreement between the government and the International Monetary Fund was a major step towards removing the bottleneck bedeviling the economy.

Mr Amissah-Arthur disclosed that government was working hard to drastically reduce the country’s large budget deficit by cutting down on other expenditures.

Poverty level, according to him, has reduced in Ghana over the years but was quick to add cogent measures must be adopted if it was to be sustained. This, he said, would help government to better manage the economy to achieve improved growth rate and development in the country.

Mr Amissah-Arthur later joined Ambassador Wijgers to officially launch GNBCC newly published book dubbed “Doing Business in Ghana”.