09/20/2022
On Friday, September 16th, 2022, I was the keynote Speaker at the US - Ghana Business Expo and Roundtable in Philadelphia, USA.
In my address, I recounted my close personal association with the United States in various capacities, including serving as the UNDP's Regional Director of Enterprise Africa in the late 1990s and Ghana's Ambassador in the early 2000s where I worked closely in shaping the American Government’s support to Ghana through the Millennium Challenge Corporation, and the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).
As a country, our strategic approach to harnessing the benefits of the economic cooperation with the world’s biggest economy is based on three key considerations, namely, enhancing the productive capacity of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) to produce for both export and local consumption; providing fiscal and non-fiscal incentives for manufacturing; and improving access to foreign markets and thereby, creating jobs for our people.
I underscored that Government, through the Ministry of Trade and Industry which I lead, has been aggressively implementing the following interventions as part of its Industrial Transformation Agenda:
I. Promoting One District One Factory (1D1F) Initiative under which Government is supporting the private sector to establish at least one medium to large scale industrial enterprise in each of the 260 administrative Districts in Ghana, based on their natural resource endowment and their comparative advantage. We have currently supported the private sector to establish 296 businesses under the 1D1F programme, which 125 companies are operational across the country.
II. Development of new Strategic Anchor Industries aimed at diversifying the Ghanaian economy beyond Cocoa and Gold. These include Vehicle Assembly and Component Manufacturing; Garments and Textiles; Pharmaceuticals; Petrochemicals; Vegetable Oils and Fats (including Oil Palm); Industrial Chemicals (including Industrial Salt); Industrial Starch (including Cassava Starch); Integrated Bauxite and Aluminum; Iron and Steel; and Machinery and Equipment Manufacture.
III. Decentralizing institutional support for SMEs through the establishment of Business Resource Centers (BRCs) and Business Advisory Centers (BACs) throughout the country.
IV. The development of Industrial Parks and Special Economic Zones around the country, to provide access to industrial lands, dedicated source of electricity, water, telecommunication services etc for those interested in going into manufacturing. To this end, the Ministry of Trade and Industry is leading the establishment of a 5000-acre Greater Kumasi Industrial City and Special Economic Zone located at the middle of the country which will also serve as a strategic commercial hub for the landlocked Sahel countries in West Africa.
V. The establishment of Ghana as the new commercial capital for Africa under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). As the host country of the AfCFTA Secretariat, Ghana has become the nerve centre for the US$3.5 Trillion African market under the AfCFTA Agreement.
