Ghana, Senegal ideal places for Indian investments

Chennai, Mar 6 (UNI) Senegal and Ghana, the African countries currently undertaking bold and ambitious economic reform programmes, offer good potential for Indian investments, experts opined at a seminar here today.

The Generalised System of Preference (GSP) that benefits over 164 countries by assuring preferential access to markets and the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) that allows easy access to African products into the US markets have made the trade and investment climate in the African countries very attractive, Mr J Jegathesan, Senior Investment and Technology Advisor of Asia-Africa Investment Technology Promoton Centre (AAIPTC), said here.

Speaking at the seminar, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry, Mr Jegathesan added that the investment climate particularly in Senegal and Ghana were very attractive with tax holidays, locational incentives and tariff exemptions.

Mr Mbaye Khouma, Marketing Director of APIX, an Investment promotion Agency at Senegal, said ''Republic of Senegal, with over 10.5 million French speaking nationals and a per capita income of 550 US dollar has announced a massive infrastructure initiative through private investments.'' Many projects based on the Build Own Operate and Transfer scheme had been announced, he added.

Indian construction industry possessing world-class technology and manpower skills would have good work in Senegal, Mr Khouma noted. Besides this, information technology, food processing and sea food industry also offered lucrative markets at Senegal, he said.

Ghana Investment Promotion Centre Director Dr Peter Ankrah said India stood second in terms of the foreign investments in his country. ''Currently, there are over 131 Indian projects in the country. India will have unique advantages by setting up projects in insurance, banking, infrastructure building as well as in the tourism sector,'' he added.