Mr. Frederic Clavier, the French Ambassador in Ghana, has said that Ghana remains the only English speaking country in Africa that benefits from French policies and would continue to have confidence in its future due to the macro economic development of the country.

He said France was interested in the development of the country since it was a development pillar of France and that it would continue to support the decentralisation, cultural and socio-economic sector of the country.

Mr. Clavier said this at the launch of the Agence Francaise de Development (AFD) activity report for 2011.

The report throws more light on the activities of the AFD worldwide with the focus on Ghana and evaluates its impact on the nation in line with the development agenda of the Ghana government.

“Ghana is one of the countries with economic stability, democracy, and respect for human rights. A country that has the ability to for its own development and has made several efforts to reduce elements of poverty and continues to make changes in most aspects and has an influence on the sub region’s platform,” he said.

Mr. Burno Leclerc , Resident Manager, AFD said the sub-Saharan African countries continued to be the number one priority of the AFD with more than 2.7 billion euros support with Ghana receiving almost GHc16.8 billion representing two-thirds of the French bilateral aid, in 2011.

He said“ in 2011, AFD committed in Ghana 240 million euros, including two loans to the government for the retrofit of the Kpong Dam and a new contribution to the district development facility, a direct loan of 141 million euros to GRIDCO interconnection between Ghana and Burkina Faso and a new 330KV line between Kumasi and Bolgatanga, three credit lines to local banks, several guarantees of loans to SMEs and a grant to a microfinance institution (FIDES) that was intended to develop activities in the north of Ghana”.

Mr. Laclerc said the activities of AFD were in line with government’s strategy as defined in the Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda and were part of the French cooperation strategy in Ghana.

He said both countries jointly decided to concentrate in three major sectors including agriculture, urban development and support to local government and energy, adding that innovation was a key driver of the AFD.

“Added value and comparative advantage of ADF were its wide range of financial instruments that allowed it to finance programmes in a sector with mix of modalities including, soft loans to government, direct loans to state-owned companies without the guarantee of government in order to avoid increasing the indebtedness of the state of Ghana, loans and equity participation to private companies and grants”.

According to Mr. Leclerc, the total estimate of commitments for 2012 could amount to more that 150 million Euros, since a 40 million Euro to government had already been committed for sanitation and rural water supply in four regions as well as participation of AFD group in the financing of the third turbine of the Takoradi 2 power point.

He said after 2013 AFD would continue to provide soft loans to the government of Ghana, increase direct loans to public and private companies, and focus on analytical works as well as training.

The AFD is a public development finance institution implementing the French aid policy in the countries in which it operates, including Ghana and some other West African countries.

It was opened in Ghana in 1985 to support the national development strategy, by concentrating in three major sectors including the agriculture, local government and urban development and energy, support the private sector and organise training activities.