The campaign, dubbed the “Asia Deal and No Deal Road show”, is expected to match local businesses with Asian investors to draw investments into the country through partnerships to ensure the active participation of the private sector in the government’s industrialisation agenda.

The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre, (GIPC), Mr Yofi Grant, told journalists at a news briefing shortly after the launch of the Ghana Asia Business Club (GABC) in Accra on December 15 that the campaign’s intended objectives were expected to be achieved through well-crafted networking opportunities. 

“We want to position Ghana as the best place to do business in West Africa. There are quite a lot of things we’ll want to do. There are no clear cuts yet but that is why we are engaging in these kind of discussions to get feedback from many of the businesses”, Mr Yofi Grant said. 

The Asia Deal and No Deal Road show is set for January 28 to February 12, 2018.

In a related development, “The GIPC, the Ministry of Finance, DWM Group and its partners, supported by Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (Japan’s largest Bank), will be embarking on an investment campaign to ensure that the Ghanaian private sector scores a big win in Asia as regards trade and investment”, a statement released to the media after the briefing mentioned.

The statement also indicated that the GIPC, together with DWM Group, would lead the sustained engagement of business matching for the private sector with its respective counterparts in Japan, Singapore and China.

The investment campaign partners will spearhead the formation of the Asia Business Club with the objective to deliver intelligence based business introductions leading to sustained engagement and real results for the private sector within a defined business framework, the statement added.

Ghana Asia Business Club

The Ghana Asia business club seeks to ensure that Ghanaian businesses achieve a global impact through strategic collaborations with its counterparts in Asia by assisting with business representation and marketing to achieve a fulsome outcome.

According to the GIPC, the relationships that the road show seeks to establish between local businesses and Asian investors will be supported with solid financial representation to be provided by MUFC and Standard Chartered Bank to ensure that local businesses achieve global attention.

Among many other objectives, the GABC seeks to equip local businesses with the understanding of the challenges of cross border transactions, particularly those between Africa and Asia, and negotiate terms with preferred partners to ensure that all business support services are provided.

Industrial drive

The government seeks to build an industrialised economy that will be self-sustaining and not reliant on foreign aid.

It also aims to change the structure of the economy through investments in industrialisation and entrepreneurship to increase revenue generation.

Although ambitious, the government wants to ride on the back of the private sector to establish medium to large-scale factories in each of the 216 districts nationwide.