Kufuor arrives in Geneva

Geneva, June 3, GNA - President John Agyekum Kufuor arrived in Geneva, Switzerland, late Sunday afternoon, to address the 96th International Labour Conference, which officially opens on Monday. More than 3,000 Government, Worker and Employment leaders from across the world are attending the annual meeting of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to deliberate on issues ranging from decent work and development to child labour in agriculture, fishing, equality of work, forced labour and promotion of sustainable enterprises.

President Kufuor is accompanied by the Foreign Minister, Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo-Addo, the Minister of Manpower, Youth and Employment, Mr. Boniface Abubakar Saddique, Ghana's Ambassador to Switzerland, Mr. Kwadwo Baah-Doudu, and other senior Government Officials.

From here, he is scheduled to travel to Paris to hold bilateral talks with the recently elected French President, Mr Nicolas Sarkozy. Relations between Ghana and France has seen significant improvement since 2001 with France supporting a number of development programmes in Ghana, including the building of some major bridges in the Northern parts of the country at a cost of 11 million Euros, public sector reforms, the National Identification (ID) project and urban infrastructure.

President Kufuor is also billed alongside five other African Heads of State, to attend the 2007 Berlin, Group of Eight Industrialized Nations (G-8) Summit, that gets underway from 6-8, June. South African President Thabo Mbeki, newly Nigerian sworn-in President Umaru Musah Yar'dua, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal and Algerian President Abdul Aziz Bouteflika, are the other African leaders invited to the summit.