Help Ghana get into the mainstream of global market - Kufuor

Accra, June 20, GNA - President John Agyekum Kufuor has asked Ghana's development partners to do more to support the drive towards attracting the needed business investment inflows to launch the country into the mainstream of the global market.

He noted that it was through a high inflow of profit-driven business investments that more job openings could be created to reduce poverty among the people.

President Kufuor was addressing the Ghana Consultative Group Annual Partnership Meeting at the La Palm Royal Beach Hotel in Accra on Wednesday.

Participants at the two-day meeting included representatives of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), European Union (EU) and other development partners, Ministers of State, Members of Parliament (MPs), the private sector and civil society.

Their deliberations covered a broad range of issues, starting with constraints and opportunities for accelerating growth and poverty reduction and progressing to a discussion of economic results achieved in 2006, resources available for development programmes and how effectively the aid partnership was working.

The meeting also examined the Government's strategy for scaling up its achievements in line with the middle-income aspirations, the resources likely to be available over the next five years, initiatives to secure value for money and how partnership arrangements were evolving priority programmes and to reduce transaction costs.

Mr Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, Finance and Economic Planning Minister and Mr Mats Karlsson, Country Director of the World Bank, co-chaired it. President Kufuor said the country was grateful for the pledges of increased development assistance from the donor community but said the challenge was how promptly and predictably they would deliver. He identified energy as the major problem confronting the country and said the Government was working around the clock to get on top of it.

The Government, he said, was looking at other sources to ensure that there was sufficient and reliable energy supply to support economic growth.

The discovery of oil reserves 40 miles offshore of the West Cape Three Points, he said, did not happen by accident and should be credited to the Government's vision.

President Kufuor said it was a vindication of the Government's decision in 2001 that the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) concentrated on its core business.