SINGAPORE Commits To Investing In Ghana

Singapore has committed to invest in the infrastructural, oil and the manufacturing sector of Ghana�s economy and has as a result set up office in Ghana to direct investment from Asia. Among other things, resources from the Asian Country are to be used in a massive facelift of Ghana�s airport, harbor, oil and the manufacturing sectors. A memorandum of understanding to that effect was signed yesterday between the Ghana Investment Promotion Center (GIPC) and International Enterprise Singapore (IES), a body which spearheads Singapore�s effect to develop its external economic wing. An office, first of kind in sub-Saharan African has subsequently been setup in Accra to facilitate investment flow from Asia to Ghana. Chief executive officer of IES, Teo Eng Cheong, at the signing ceremony said areas such as waste management, water treatment and energy provision will also receive lots of investments in the country. �Stable democracy and boom in the Ghanaian economy greatly influenced our decision to invest here and indeed our office here in Ghana will serve as a platform to increase investment from Asia to Ghana� he added. Business between Ghana and Singapore is said to be around One Billion United States Dollar but is estimated to rise with the new opportunities open in Ghana. Mr. Eng Cheong told the media lots of companies have also expressed interest to invest in the oil and the manufacturing sector of Ghana�s economy. Chief Executive Officer of GIPC, Mawuena Trebarh, whose visit to Singapore as part of her investment drive got Singapore to set up the office in Ghana, is hopeful the development will open up Ghana to the rest of Asia. She told the media, collaboration with IES in areas of infrastructural development will be between them and the government of Ghana while the private sector is expected to partner Singapore in light manufacturing and the development of offshore oil rigs. �I see lots of the youth in the country getting jobs and this is just the first of many such interventions to come to Ghana,� she added. Mrs. Trebarh disclosed that lots of collaboration between foreign investors and their Ghanaians counterparts will soon be bear frits in the country as the centre awaits the president to accent to the revised GIPC bill passed by the parliament last week. The bill among other things introduces a provision that requires Ghanaian partner�s in joint ventures to have not less than 30 per cent equity participation, and prohibits the transfer of that equity to a non-Ghanaian in order to avoid the circumvention of the higher foreign capital requirement. She indicated that business of foreign companies will at all times be protected.