FDI up by 702%

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) registered with the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) as required by law increased significantly both in numbers and value.

During the first half of 2008, the center recorded total cash investments and commitments of US$3,090.79 million compared with US$385.57 million recorded during the corresponding period of 2007. This represents a sharp rise of 702% compared with the same period last year.

The figure, indeed, exceeds the GH¢ 1.8 billion target that government earmarked for itself in the 2008 budget. But out of the offices attracted GH¢1/03 million and GH¢O.O million spread across 2 and 3 projects respectively.

China and India continue to top the list of countries where the greater number of projects originated from during this period. The United Kingdom registered 5 projects, although these projects had the highest investment values.

It is expected that 4,900 jobs will be created by the new projects registered during the second quarter of 2008. Out of these 4,670 will be Ghanaians while the remaining 230 are for expatriates. This brings the total number of jobs expected to be created by projects registered in the first half of 2008 to 14,607.