Bawumia woos German investors

Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has said that Ghana’s “economy is bright” as he interacted with a German business delegation to Ghana.

He noted that the focus by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government is to expand business growth and widen the country’s tax net. This, he said, has led to several efforts to reduce, and, in some cases, abolish taxes and levies that hamper business activities.

“You see it in the budget that we reduced a number of taxes. You saw the real estate and VAT abolished. You saw domestic airline VAT abolished, you saw major reduction on the tax on small business. The special import levy of 1 percent was also abolished and so on. We have signaled that in the not-too-distant future, we will eliminate all import duties on raw materials and machinery for production.

“So those are elements to signal our commitment to production and give business incentives to thrive,” he said.

He added that government was instituting measures for prudent fiscal management and to also tackle issues such as corruption.

Dr Bawumia made these known on Thursday, 30 March when a delegation from the German Industry and Commerce met him in Accra.

For his part, German Ambassador to Ghana Christoph Retzlaff, expressed confidence in creating more investments in Ghana to contribute to the growth of the economy.

He noted that several efforts are being made by Germany and other countries through the G20 partnerships with Africa to invest in the continent.

“Under the partnership, the new government of Ghana is putting private investments at the centre of their activities. So what we want to achieve under our G20 initiative is more private business and more investments to Ghana to create jobs and to build infrastructure,” he stated.

He said there will be a conference in Germany in June for business leaders and African heads of state from G20 countries as well as NGOs to conclude and sign compacts with interested African countries for business opportunities.

The dialogue with the German business community is the first meeting between the two parties under the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government.

He said the NPP government is “right in putting business first because business is the key to sustainable developments”.