Ghana to tap Canada's expertise in oil devt

Accra, Feb. 19, GNA - Government is to tap Canada's experience in oil exploration to explore and develop Ghana's oil discovery at Cape Three Point

in the West Region, Mr. Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu Finance and Economic Planning Minister on Tuesday said. He said Canada has rich expertise and experience in the exploration and production of oil and the energy sectors which Ghana could benefit immensely from through effective partnership.

"Ghana has discovered oil and it need to put things in order to derive the maximum gain," the Minister said when he received at his office the newly appointed Canadian High Commissioner, Mr. Darren Schemmer. Other areas of bilateral trade to be promoted between two countries Mr. Baah-Wiredu said were the agricultural sector, human resource development, Information Communication Technology, infrastructure and railways.

He said Canada was well advance in those areas saying "let us share your experiences as we have been doing in the past." Mr. Baah-Wiredu specifically called for the exchange of knowledge and trade in software application development and assembling between the two nations.

Mr. Schemmer said Canada's interest in Ghana cut across several sectors, which was evident in her long standing support to many projects and programmes through Canadian International Development Assistance (CIDA).

He said so far over one billion dollars have been invested in the local mining sector with trade between the two countries growing from 20 to 30 percent.

For 2008, he said Canada was supporting Ghana with about 43 million US dollars which would be disbursed under various the Multi-Donor Budgetary Support (MDBS) and various national initiatives such as; the Food and Agriculture Budgetary Support, the District Wide Assistance Project, the Community-Driven Initiative for Food Security and the Ghana Environment Management Programme.