- Advertisement -
Report by Nana POKU
The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre, Yoofi Grant has announced that on Wednesday the 25th of January 2023, his outfit will play host to All African Trade Promotion Agencies in Accra.
According to him, this has become so imperative as Africa cannot continue the ancient ways of exporting raw products to foreign countries with their attendant little foreign exchange earnings.
This time around, the continent is poised to add value to its numerous natural resources to attract the necessary market price. This will create opportunities and optimal returns for the continent and its people.
The CEO announced this at a Press Launch at the Ministry of Information in Accra on Monday, 23rd of January in Accra. He lamented that the continent controls about 50% of the world’s minerals as Gold, Cobalt, Lithium, Bauxite, Diamonds etc but gets nothing from them when exported in their raw form.
Bauxite for instance is bought at 60 dollars per pound in its raw form but when refined into aluminium costs 100 times higher in value.
He intimated that the world depends on Africa for most of its natural and human resources to be able to manufacture a lot of its products. So if Africa can add value to its raw resources Africa can leapfrog in economic realms.
Mr Yoofi Grant indicated that Africa’s trade indices rose from 40 billion dollars in 2020 to 83 billion in post-Covid era. However, the trading account of Europe went up to 600 billion from the previous record and that of Asia went up to 140 billion. He told the gathering that this was Africa’s best was one billion on average to the 54 countries in Africa.
He postulated that apart from India and China, Africa has the largest population of 144 billion that can be leveraged to create a ready market for its local products. He again posited that about 480 companies and multi-purpose foreign organisations are mostly foreign-owned but it’s about us becoming owners of our business operators to bring in more foreign exchange to stabilise our currencies.
It is against this backdrop that they are meeting to re-situate the unfortunate order that has impoverished Africa.
The CEO further announced that there will be an assemblage of Heads of State to deliberate on the African Prosperity Agenda aimed at breaking this yoke of over-dependency on foreign donor support and import to give birth to homegrown policies and programmes in the African context.
He called on his compatriots to closely work together to devise methods of encouraging the medium and small-scale businesses that form the bulk of these trade hubs to hold the fort.
ACTA according to him has come to ginger up the African continent to facilitate trade among the individual states. This he argued must be done by lowering the various bottlenecks and trade barriers to foster trade among sister nations in Africa.
Mr Yoofi Grant enumerated several benefits the meeting would unleash in Africa.
Among these are building stronger bonds, exchanging ideas and knowledge, setting new standards, setting new benchmarks, adding value to its numerous mineral resources and agricultural produce, having common tariffs, and trading among themselves, etc.
- Advertisement -
