GIPC Registers More Projects

The Ghana Investment Promotion Centre registered 26 projects estimated to cost US$11.73 million involving US$9.96 million FDI and US$1.76 million in local currency for the first quarter of this year. A press release from the Centre said there were 15 joint foreign-Ghanaian enterprise valued at US$3.05 million and 12 wholly foreign projects estimated to cost US$8.67 million FDI. Initial capital transfers amounted to US$2.56 million. Expected employment opportunities to be created by these projects are 1396 for Ghanaians and 79 for non-Ghanaians.

The services sector registered 9 projects involving US$2.92 million followed by the manufacturing sector with 8 projects at the cost of US$5.91 million in both foreign and local funding. Agriculture, Building and Construction, Tourism and General Trade sectors registered 2 projects each at a total cost of US$2.87 million.

The release said since mid-1999, the Centre has been implementing the Gateway Programme with the operational objective of a well-targeted investment promotion, private sector surveys and strategies to target export oriented ventures which seek to exploit the local land sub-regional markets of ECOWAS and add value through the processing of the national resources. Since then there has been significant increases in the rate of site visits to the country. By the end of 2001 these visits had increased remarkably following business delegations from leading source countries with interests in textiles and garments, aqua-culture, agro-processing, tourism, real estate development, electronics and electricals production.

From September 1994 the Centre has registered 1281 projects mainly in the service (382) and manufacturing (353) sectors of the economy. These FDI related projects comprise 897 (70.0%) joint foreign-Ghanaian and 385 (30.0%) wholly foreign owned projects estimated cost of US$1.72 billion of which US$1.40 billion were foreign capital (US$447.16 million equity and US$972.46 million loans) and US$296.17 million local funding in equity (US$206.81 million) and loans (US$91.12 million). Joint foreign-Ghanaian projects were initially capitalised at US$1.30 billion whilst wholly foreign owned projects were estimated to cost US$444.75 million. These investments were projected to generate employment opportunities for 68,258 Ghanaians and 4,265 non-Ghanaians. Initial foreign capital transfers in respect of the minimum required by the law amounted to US$176.46 million. There has also been registered a total of 87 liaison offices.

Leading sources of foreign investments into the country were Great Britain with 139 projects and India with 117 projects. Others were China (112 projects), USA (97 projects) and Germany (83 projects). From the developing countries Nigeria (37), South Africa (26) and Malaysia (12) were the main sources of investment inflows.

The regional distribution of projects continued to be skewed towards the Greater Accra Region with cumulative 1005 (78.45%) projects followed by the Ashanti Region with 93 (7.26%) projects.

As at the end of March 2002, the Centre had visited 1182 (92.27%) project sites; found 896 (69.95%) enterprises in operation and 116 (9.06%) in various stages of preparations to start business. There are 93 (7.26%) enterprises that may have been abandoned or that cannot be traced.