Ghana received a total of 279 Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) projects valued at US$2.7 billion in 2020 despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

The projects will go into areas such as manufacturing, services, building and construction, agriculture, mining, petroleum and export trading and expected to generate 27,110 jobs nationwide.

According to the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) that facilitated the investment drive, a total value of US$2.65 billion of those projects were foreign investments while US$145 million were domestic.

Information Minister Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah announced this during the Minister’s media briefing in Accra on Sunday.

The Minister noted that last year’s FDI saw about 140 per cent increase in investment over the 2019 because of sound monetary and fiscal policies and expansion of the country’s economic space.

He said 184 of the projects will go into services, 57 to the manufacturing sector, 15 to export trading, and 10 to general trading.

Mr Oppong Nkrumah said, for instance, the manufacturing sector will receive US$1.2 billion, US$650 million for the services, US$120 million will go into the mining sector, and US$122 million into the petroleum sector.

Some of the foreign countries that made various investments into the local economy include China, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Australia and South Africa.

Mr Oppong Nkrumah indicated that the GIPC had been tasked to ensure the equity and logistical components were realised.

The projects are expected to be implemented in eight regions including the Greater Accra, Ashanti, Central, Volta, Oti, Western, Eastern and Northern.

Two hundred and thirty-one(231) of the projects will go to the Greater Accra, 31 to Western, seven to Ashanti, three to Volta, three to Eastern and Upper East and Central Regions will have one each.

Mr Oppong Nkrumah further explained that the GIPC had been tasked to provide quarterly updates on the progress of work of those investment opportunities, adding that database on the first quarter update on work done so far was ready and would be published very soon.

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Investment’s (UNCTAD) Global Investment Trends Monitor said global investment collapsed in 2020, falling by 42 per cent to an established US$859 billion, from US$1.5 trillion in 2019.

The decline was concentrated in developed countries when FDI flows fell by 69 per cent to an estimated US$229 billion.

Despite the grim economic outlook caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the overall FDI in developing countries appeared relatively resilient.