Ghana and South Africa agreed here on Monday to deepen bilateral trade and investment ties to promote growth and development on the African continent.
Opening the Ghana-South Africa Business-to-Business Forum here, South Africa’s High Commissioner to Ghana Lulama Xingwama noted that there is the need for sustainable partnerships between fellow African countries through investment and trade in order to create inclusive growth and development.
“The future of business and economic development in Africa lies in closer cooperation among our countries within the continent. Let us look within the resources we have as partner African countries because we are cut from the same source,” she stressed.
The envoy described Ghana as a key partner in West Africa with its Lower Middle Income Status in the sub-region.
Through the Joint Permanent Cooperation signed in 2007, the two countries have established a Joint Trading and Investment Committee through which they monitor activities between their two countries.
The forum was held on the occasion of a two-day reciprocal visit by David Makhura, Premier of the state of Gauteng in South Africa, to Ghana after the visit a week earlier by Yoofi Grant, the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Investment Promotion Council (GIPC) as the two seek bilateral trading and investment opportunities with each other.
“If Africa wants to become a global player there is the need to increase intra-African trade from the current 12 percent to above 80 percent. Africa is a great market waiting to be explored and exploited by our own initiatives,” Grant observed.
He said the focus of the current government is to make Ghana the hub for tourism, finance, manufacturing and business in the sub-region.
For his part, Makhura said the infrastructural challenges across the continent are the opportunities African investors should be taking advantage of.
He noted that although more than 70 percent of the world’s total mineral resources were in Africa which also has a youthful population, the continent was still not wealthy. (Xinhua)
