The German Federal Development Minister Dirk Niebel met President John Atta Mills and Finance Kwabena Duffuor.

"Ghana's economic development in recent years is an impressive success story in sub-Saharan Africa," said Federal Development Minister Dirk Niebel during his conversation with the head of state.

The Germany economic minister said "We want to help Ghana to continue her success story and to make a permanent and steady economic growth, sustainable and broad impact. From our own experience we know that this can only succeed if the private sector aquire available and adequately trained staff. Therefore we our bilateral development cooperation must set a new directions and expand our commitment to the field of vocational education."

Also, a project of the trilateral cooperation between Germany, Israel and Ghana must be carried out in future in the West African country(Ghana). He said at the beginning of next year an agreement between Israel and Germany must be reached in cooperation with the third country Ghana and would be implemented with the support of the German Ministry of Development. Ghana would be the first country on the African continent to enjoay a bilateral development cooperation with Isreal and Germany.

The German development cooperation will aslo accompany Ghana in implementing its law on renewable energies. The Ghanaian government has set a target of increasing by 2020 the share of renewable energy in electricity consumption to 10 percent. "While the use of renewable energy in Ghana has become a tradition, but nevertheless there is still considerable potential from the German economy.

The German economic minister Dirk Niebel said after meeting with Finance Minister Duffuor he was happy that Ghana and Germany are now starting to work together in this pioneering field.

Another important issue discussed was the pro-poor use of revenues at the west coast of Ghana with the beginning oil and gas production.

Ghana was certified recently as the second country in Africa to meet the requirements of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), an initiative to strengthen transparency in the extractive sector. In addition, the country has already submitted a draft law on the future use of revenues from oil and gas production and among other things, the establishment of a fund generation to ensure that future generations in Ghana can benefit from the resources of oil and other revenues.

I hope Ghana (President Mills) will join Israel and Germany to enhance a permanent and steady economic growth in the country.

FRANCIS TAWIAH (Duisburg - Germany)