Ghana-China Friendship - Association organises forum

THE Minister of Food and Agriculture, Mr Kwesi Ahwoi, has urged the Registrar-General’s Department and the Ghana Investment Promotion Council (GIPC) to open up their administrative procedures to create an enabling environment for foreign businesses in Ghana.
The reason, he said, was because Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) attraction had become very competitive and sophisticated and given the global economic meltdown, the FDI terrain was going to be fiercely and more aggressively battled out.
He, therefore, tasked the two authorities to ensure an effective, transparent and predictable regulatory framework devoid of arbitrariness for the domestic markets to be competitive.
Mr Ahwoi was speaking at a public forum organised by the Ghana-China Friendship Association (GHACHIFA) on the theme, “Doing Business in Ghana in a Friendly Way”, at the weekend in Accra.
According to him, the theme fell in line with the government’s quest to deepen the country’s relationship with its development partners in order to increase the benefits from such relationships.
Currently, he said the GIPC Act 478 , Ghana Free Zone Act 1984, the Minerals and Mining Law of 1986 and the Petroleum Law 1984 were being reviewed to deepen the transparency and predictability of these enabling legislation.
He suggested that what Ghana needed to do was to position itself to be able to join the battle and attract its due share of the global investment by creating the right conditions for investment such as opening up the economy,
Mr Ahwoi expressed his ministry’s appreciation at the support it had been receiving from the government of China in the areas like irrigation and rice projects since independence.
He said China was the number one in the League of Nations with 383 registered projects from 1994 to 2008 10 of which were in the agricultural sector.
He, therefore, congratulated Chinese companies who have chosen Ghana as a business destination and appealed to them to venture more in the area of agriculture since China was noted for its potential in agriculture.
The Chinese Ambassador to Ghana, Mr Yu Wenhze, said the GHACHIFA had played a positive role by promoting the friendship between the two countries since its establishment in 1999, stating that his outfit in 2008 alone had issued about 250,000 visas to Ghanaians.
Tracing the friendship between the two countries to the era of Ghana’s first president, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, he said after the Beijing Summit in 2006, the two countries had through their relationship obtained good results in the various fields.
He said considering the volume of trade between the two countries, it had become quite necessary for the citizens to learn the language, culture, customs and practices of each country.
Mr Wenzhe appealed to Ghanaian ministries and authorities to continue improving the business environment in order to attract more foreign cooperation and investment, and challenged Chinese companies to share their business success with the local community.
The President of GHACHIFA, Mr Kojo Amoo-Gottfried, in a brief address, recounted his experience in China as an Ambassador during Dr Kwame Nkrumah’s visit to China in 1966.
He said China had over 22 per cent of the world’s population and was a guarantor to Ghana’s development, adding that “If we have to develop, then we need to do so with a country that supported us in the past, to also support us in the future”.
A State Attorney at the Registrar Generals Department, Mrs Jemimah Oware, who briefed the participants at the forum on guidelines of registering a business in Ghana, urged the investors not to go looking for middlemen to help them but seek assistance from their front office.
She said a major hinderance to their operations was restraining clients who preferred to the use of the back door and added that the department intended to centralise their operations to make it more customer friendly.
She urged businesses to file their annual returns 18 months after their incorporation since if they failed to do that, their names would be deleted from the register and also cautioned investors to sign their own documents and not allow others to sign for them.
“The objects should not be immoral or deceptive to the public, as that goes against the Companies Code”, she added.
The Director of Business Development at GIPC, Mr Ashong Lartey, explained the process of acquiring the right documentation to participants to enable them do credible business in the country
His discussion bordered on regulations and the GIPC Act 478 specifically. He added that the government of Ghana was proud that Ghana had been ranked the best place to do business in West Africa and the 10th in Africa for 2009.