Ghana’s business environment remains ripe for investors

Madam Martha Pobee, Ghana’s Charge d’Affaires and Deputy High Commissioner to South Africa, engaged the private sector on investment opportunities in infrastructure, services, agriculture, industry; trade and elaborated on the government's expenditure plans, emerging industries and the business culture of Ghana.

"It is important for Ghana to be present at forums such as the Nedbank-NEPAD Business Foundation forum, as working with the private sector remains an imperative focus for the development of Ghana,” says Mrs Pobee. "Ghana has attracted global attention and international businesses are keen to invest in various sectors of our economy. The attraction resonates from our advantageous social, political and economic environment in which they can invest, grow, and develop to be successful.”

Thabang Chiloane, Divisional Executive Public Affairs at Nedbank says that Ghana needs to develop new, labour intensive economic sectors such as manufacturing and agro-processing in order to tackle the employment challenge and provide economic opportunities to rural areas. However, he says it will require clear and comprehensible public policies to improve the competitiveness of the economy. "Furthermore, decisions on how to spend the country's increasing oil revenue, projected at several billion US dollars (USD) over the next two decades, will be crucial to future economic transformation,” says Mr Chiloane.

Mrs Pobee elaborated on the key sectors attracting business into Ghana, which includes oil and gas, energy, tourism, ICT, financial services, agriculture and agro-processing, manufacturing and infrastructure. "Much interest has been shown in the recent discovery of oil in Ghana, which seems to be taking the shine out of the other equally lucrative and promising sectors,” Mrs Pobee says. "It is important to indicate from the onset that although this new sector has opened up additional opportunities for business, government is committed to promoting business in the other sectors, which remain crucial for development.”

The Ghanaian government’s energy policy wants to increase power generation capacity to 5,000 megawatts by 2016 and achieving universal access to electric power by 2020. This is in recognition of the important role that energy plays in the overall development of the country and especially for industry. The government envisages a combination of thermal, hydro and renewable energy and aims to achieve gas-based generation for 80% of the thermal power plants by 2015.

Altogether, Ghana has an installed capacity of 1980 Mega Watts. The demand is currently 14000MW and is growing at 10% per annum. It is estimated that Ghana would require capacity additions of about 200MW to catch up with the increasing demand in the medium to long term. The existing power plants are unable to attain full generation capacity due to limitations either in fuel supply, rising fuel costs or uncertainty in rainfall and water inflows into the hydro-electric power facilities.

In June and September 2007, a consortium of companies in conjunction with the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation announced the discovery of significant quantities of oil and gas in the offshore deep water Tano/Cape three Points basins located in the southernmost part of Ghana. The total value of crude oil exports in 2011 was US$ 2.7 billion and this is expected to rise as production levels increase and work on the other discoveries is completed.

Furthermore, the discovery of oil in commercial quantities in Ghana presents enormous opportunities for the services industry. It is estimated that US$ 5 billion worth of business will be generated annually in support services for the oil and gas sector. Due to the emerging nature of the industry, opportunities exist in virtually every area of the petroleum industry both upstream and downstream.

57% of Ghana’s total land area of 23.9 million hectares is suitable for agricultural purposes. In the forest zone, where rainfall is plentiful, cocoa, coffee, oil palm, cashew and rubber are cultivated. In the northern savanna zone, which is the largest agricultural zone, crops such as rice, millet and tomatoes are cultivated on a relatively large scale. The zone is also well-suited for livestock farming, including commercial ostrich farming. Business opportunities exist for agricultural inputs and irrigation facilities.

This sector has seen a total transformation in the last eight years and has grown considerably. The value of exports of horticultural products has steadily increased over the years. In 2011 it amounted to US$ 55,082,671 as compared to US$ 48, 999,719 in 2010. Ghana commands a great share of Africa’s quota of the EU market in fruit and vegetable exports.

"We are grateful to platforms such as these that connect Ghana with potential investors and look forward to further partnerships we can establish with the private sector in South Africa,” concludes Pobee.