Ayorkor Botchwey champions transformative investment, trade agenda

Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, Ghana’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, has called for the implementation of policies to engender a transformative environment for enhanced trade and investment.

That, she said would enable Commonwealth members to reap prosperous and mutual benefit from integration and participation in global and regional supply chain, as well as multilateral trade.

Madam Ayorkor Botchwey, who is seeking to be the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, said this at an Economic Counsellors’ Dialogue in Accra on Tuesday, April 30.

It was jointly held by the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, on the theme: “Navigating the changing landscape of international investment agreements”.

“This transformative policy could even be a module for the World Trade Organisation (WTO) for a synergic mix of regional and multilateral trade integration,” Mad Ayorkor Botchwey said.

On the part of Ghana, she said the government, through digital innovations had eased the burden of doing business and investing in the country by streamlining processes to provide faster and convenient services to people.

That includes e-business registration, implementation of a paperless port, digital addressing systems, and Mobile Money interoperability, and national identification systems.

“These initiatives by far, have assisted to lower the cost of doing business and have made it easier for firms to communicate with their customers, especially in a technology-driven era, where connecting through digital services is a critical component of attaining competitiveness and sustainability,” she said.

She also noted that State institutions like GIPC, Ghana Export Promotion Authority, and Ghana Enterprise Agency, Ghana Free Zones Board, had all been better placed to readily assist, secure, and sustain investments in the country.

Madam Ayorkor Botchwey stated that her Ministry was leveraging tools, such as the Bilateral Joint Permanent Commissions for Cooperation, Economic and Political dialogues and consultations with strategic investors to renegotiate many bilateral agreements and treaties to make it fit into today’s business environment.

She encouraged investors to continue to put their money into Ghana’s agriculture and agrobusiness, manufacturing and industry, ICT and automobile sectors, were mutually beneficial opportunities abound.

Mr Yofi Grant, the Chief Executive Officer of GIPC, also indicated that to enhance support for investors and attract high-quality, sustainable investments to Ghana, the Centre had become more proactive to investor sentiments.

He stated that through a World Bank assistance under the Ghana Economic Transformation Project (GETP), the country had developed a Corporate Investment Promotion Strategy and Business Plan.

The plan, he said, had been aiding GIPC in defining and optimising its partnerships with stakeholders, establishing internal and external teams, strengthening its advocacy for investment climate reforms, while adapting and expanding its activities to provide relevant and comprehensive services to investors.