A survey conducted on China-Ghana Investment Relations has recommended an increased supervision of Chinese enterprises to ensure they operated within the licences issued to them.
Most Chinese enterprises, registered as manufacturers, end up participating in trading, which included assembling of products.
Dr Dela Tsikata, a Doctoral Fellow of the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER), of University of Ghana, read the findings of the survey conducted from 2007 to 2009 at a day’s dissemination workshop in Accra, on Tuesday.
The survey conducted by ISSER in collaboration with African Economic Research Consortium (AERC), looked at the nature and impact of the recent upsurge of Chinese investments in Ghana and analysed the key features and patterns of the economic relations between the two countries.
Dr Tsikata said though the contribution of China to Ghana’s investment had been enormous, “they have always been the beneficiary”, and explained that Chinese investments in trade were not clearly beneficial since most of their employees were imported from China with a few from Ghana.
“Those employed from Ghana unfortunately occupy the lower positions whilst the employees from China occupied the higher positions,” he added.
Dr Tsikata said there were some policy gaps, which had been manipulated by the Chinese and called for policy driven initiatives that would focus on increasing cooperation between the Chinese and the locals through joint meetings.
Mr Joseph Annan, Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, in a speech read on his behalf said trade between Ghana and China had always favoured China with imports from China from 2006 to 2010 averaging 711 million dollars whilst Ghana’s exports to China within the same period recorded an average of 40 million dollars.
He described this as a great imbalance in trade between the two nations and stressed the need for Ghana to add value to her agricultural produce and manufacture quality products for export to China and other countries.
The Deputy Minister said the Ministry would ensure that the recommendations proposed by the study would be developed into policies and strategies that would ensure a win-win situation.
Mr Isaac Okine, Principal Investment Promotion Officer of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) said its law was under review to ensure that all concerns raised by the survey would be addressed.