Africa must improve negotiating skills for better partnership deals - Bawumia

Ghana's Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has challenged African countries to devise new negotiating skills in order to attract better partnership deals with the rest of the world.

Speaking at the Africa Joint Research and Exchange Programme held under the theme "Building Resilient Industries & Infrastructure for Economic Transformation in Africa: The Role of China", at the Tang Palace Hotel, Accra on Tuesday, the Vice President said Ghana for that matter has adopted a new approach in dealing with partners rather than borrowing and depending on aid.

He said the continent must leverage on its rich resources to attract the right investments.

"I should add that because as a country, we have been so used to the old model of borrowing from China, many analysts have not understood this new paradigm," Dr Bawumia said.

He said the 15-billion-dollar deal brokered with the Chinese government is not a loan but a joint venture proposal that will be beneficial to the economy.

“Let me state again that what we are proposing, and the agreements we have reached so far, are not new loans but rather joint venture proposals using less than 5% of our refined bauxite reserves. We are using this small fraction of our bauxite reserves not for the benefit of one individual or company but for the benefit of the entire nation,” he said.