The Ghana Investment Promotion Centre said yesterday that 17 registered firms owned by Nigerians had invested 1.5 billion dollars (about N325 billion) in Ghana’s economy.

Mr George Aboagye, Chief Executive Officer of the agency, disclosed this while presenting the investment opportunities in Ghana at the ongoing 2011 Lagos International Trade Fair.

Aboagye said the investments were those recorded between September 1994 and June 2011.

He said that the investment was expected to grow by $500 million (about N75 billion) by 2015.

Aboagye said the investments were in agriculture, manufacturing, building, liaison, services, tourism and the general and export trade sectors of Ghana’s economy.

He said Nigeria was his country’s 5th and 6th largest source of investment in terms of value and number of projects registered.

Aboagye said the relations between the two countries had been very warm, cordial and beneficial.

“Ghana is richly endowed with human and natural resources. These resources present numerous business opportunities in oil and gas, agriculture, manufacturing, tourism, energy and property development,” Aboagye said. He said the priority sectors for investment in Ghana were oil and gas, energy, infrastructure, agriculture, manufacturing, tourism, ICT and financial services. Aboagye said that Nigerians had the kind of entrepreneurship that Ghana look up to.

“Whenever a Nigerian comes to do business, the knowledge and experience he brings always proved very useful to us in Ghana,” he said.

Aboagye listed investment incentives to include custom duties exemption for plants, machinery, equipment, graduated and reasonable corporate taxes and tax holidays ranging from five years to 10 years.

“Other incentives include relief from double taxation, location incentives of between 25 and 50 per cent tax rebates for manufacturing companies and automatic immigrant quotas, depending on the paid up capital.”

The theme of the trade fair is: “Increasing competitiveness of Nigerian products in the global market’’.

The fair, which began on November 4 is expected to end on November 13.