Local businesses urged to invest in Ghana
Isaac Pinielo | Tuesday August 23, 2016 15:11
“We guarantee the freedom for non-Ghanaians to establish and run enterprises in potentially lucrative areas,” he said.
According to Opare-Kumi, the West African country has ongoing privatisation initiatives that also open up a number of sectors for new business partnerships and investment. He said Batswana investors may benefit from a number of investment incentives that promote new enterprises and support existing ones in Ghana, including tax holidays, tax rebates and exemptions, and capital allowances.
“Investors who operate under the Ghana Free Zones Act enjoy a range of additional incentives for investing in Ghana,” said Opare-Kumi. Although Ghana permits foreign investors to own a business wholly, he said joint ventures with Ghanaians are also encouraged.
Known as West Africa’s golden child, Ghana, through the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC), promotes joint ventures with Ghanaians by lowering the equity requirement for a joint venture to $10,000, as opposed to $50,000 for wholly foreign enterprises in all sectors.
GIPC is a Ghanaian government agency, which co-ordinates and monitors all investment activities and assists domestic and foreign investors.
Opare-Kumi explained that foreign businesses operating in Ghana are entitled to a set number of work permits for foreign expatriates, referred to as immigrant quotas.
Meanwhile, Opare-Kumi said Ghana has taken bold steps to promote and facilitate intra-regional trade, adding that the country encourages all other African countries to equally strategise for the promotion of trade on the continent.
He said although significant effort is being made in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) sub-region to improve trade and business network, there are still barriers to trade in the form of government-imposed restraints on the flow of goods and services.
“The most common barriers to trade are tariffs, taxes on imports. Other restrictions like home security check points, which equally pose a threat to business in our part of the world and also a range of other non-tariff and regulatory barriers, which raise transaction costs and limit the movement of goods, services, people and capital across borders,” he said.
Opare-Kumi stated that such restrictions are against the ECOWAS protocol on free movement of people, goods and services in the sub-region.
He said Africa in its quest to develop is backed by its numerous actions in a lot of policy framework, with the sole aim of realising the dream of developing the continent through business networks.
“The United Nations (UN), the African Union (AU), the ECOWAS treaty and other regional bodies have realised the use of trade as an effective development tool and are establishing business networks as a means of developing the individual countries and the continent in general,” Opare-Kumi said.