Ghana has been selected as the first African country to participate in the Mexico Business Summit scheduled for San Luis Potosi from 22 to 24 October, 2017.

Maria de los Angeles Arriola Aguirre, the Ambassador of Mexico to Ghana, who announced this at a meeting with Ghanaian businesses, said Mexico expected Ghana to be a strategic gateway for Mexican companies and trade with Africa.

The meeting under the auspices of the Ghana Export Promotion Authority and the Ghana Free Zones Board was to let the business community know the desire of Mexico to build a closer relationship with Ghana and to encourage the participation of Ghana in the Summit.

Mexico Business Summit offers a unique platform that gathers every year top leaders from the private, public and academic sectors from Mexico and other countries.

This year's theme “Defining Mexico's options“, will concentrate on analyzing the strategic priorities for Mexico in the current changing international arena and in a pre-presidential elections context.

Ms Aguirre said the participation of Ghanaian business people in the Summit would enable them to build the necessary contact with their Mexican counterparts that would mark the beginning of trade and business exchanges for the mutual benefit of the two countries.

Besides Ghana could use its partnership with Mexico as hub to export to most of the countries in Latin America, taking advantage of the 12 Free Trade Agreements Mexico has with 45 countries.

“It is a great opportunity for the two countries to do business,” Ms Aguirre said, adding that the Summit organisers have agreed to slash the registration fee by 50 per cent for Ghanaian participants to the Summit.

She said the political stability and the good economic climate were enough attraction to the Mexican business to partner their Ghanaian counterparts.

Mr Carlos Sanchez Pavon, a Director of PROMEXICO, the Trade and Investment Agency of Mexico, said Mexico as the 11th economy around the world is the gateway to the world’s most important market: NAFTA, almost 18.7 trillion dollars (FMI), through its network of free trade agreements.

Mexico grants preferential access to 45 countries and is the leading exporter with 35 per cent of the region’s total trade.

Mr Pavon said the focus on Ghana as a partner was to take advantage of the geo-strategic position and free trade zones of both countries and to use each other as a platform to widen economic presence in Latin America in the case of Ghana, and in Africa in the case of Mexico.

Mrs Gifty Adjei-Sam, the Director Marketing Ghana Export Promotion Agency, (GEPA) said Ghana was in a good position in the sub- region as a growing regional market with a population of more than 300 million.

He said Ghana’s non-traditional produce, which is the core mandate of the GEPA, are exported worldwide to about 137 countries.

The European Union and the ECOWAS markets continue to be the leading markets for Ghana’s NTE products.

Mrs Kate Abbeo, Deputy Executive Secretary Ghana Free Zones Board, said Ghana was ready to welcome Mexican Businesses to set up in the Free Zones enclave to be able to take advantage of the ECOWAS market.

She said the GFZB provisions offered no discrimination or preferential treatment to investors and that all incentives were offered across board.

Mrs Abbeo said the GFZB offered 100 per cent exemption from payment of corporate income tax for Free Zones companies for 10 years.

Last year, the Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA) and PROMEXICO, the Trade and Investment Agency of Mexico, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to actively promote business, investment, and trade to the mutual benefit of both countries.

The MOU commits the two institutions to share knowledge and expertise relating to the trade and economic integration, utilise resources and leverage existing resources, collaborate and expand market share.

It also enables both institutions to collaborate in business missions, events, fairs, and seminars to promote bilateral trade.