Foreign Investor Confidence Soars

Foreign investor confidence in the country’s economy continues to soar in spite of the up-coming general elections which hitherto would have compelled investors to adopt a lackluster attitude.

The show of confidence is manifest from the number of registered investments for the first three quarters of 2012, which recorded 305 projects valued at $4.97 billion.

The feat represents an increase of 6.42 per cent on the value recorded for the same period last year.

The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC), Mr George Aboagye, who announced this at a news conference in Accra said “this is an endorsement of the country’s democratic credentials and a trust in the economy as well”.

Of the projects registered, the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) component amounted to $4.38 billion as against $4.1 billion the same time last year, representing 6.5 per cent increase.

Mr Aboagye said the total number of jobs expected to be created from the registered projects was about 16,364 of which 14,560 would be Ghanaians with the remaining number being expatriates.

Giving further breakdown of the projects registered for the period, the GIPC boss said 176 were wholly-owned foreign enterprises while 129 were joint ventures between Ghanaian and foreign partners.

The joint venture projects were valued at $1.89 billion with the value of wholly-owned foreign enterprises settling at $3.08 billion.

Mr Aboagye said China continued to maintain its dominance as 40 projects came from that country for the first three quarters of the year, followed by Nigeria with 35; India with 32 and Lebanon with 20.

However, in terms of value, Lebanon topped the list of FDIs registered during the period under review with $1.48 billion, while British Virgin Islands recorded $811million; Mauritius, $545 million and the United States of American (USA) having $470 million.

For distribution into sectors, the services sector topped the list with 23 projects, while manufacturing also topped in terms of projects with the highest value of $7.39 billion.

The Brong Ahafo region recorded only one project but had the highest value of US$7,360 million. The Greater Accra region recorded 38 projects at an estimated value of $306.6 million, the second highest in the.

Within the same period, 328 projects in the country were re-registered with the GIPC of which the actual total investment recorded was US$612.39 million.

Mr Aboagye said the GIPC “remains resilient and steadfast towards its mandate to attract the best FDI needed for the development of the country and to enhance the livelihoods of its citizenry even as the country goes into the December general elections which we expect to be another peaceful one”.

He assured potential and existing investors in the country to make Ghana their investment destination of choice and be part of its development drive.

According to him, investments in the country were secure and noted that the government was well positioned to ensure that their investments were protected at all times to enable them to continue creating jobs for the people.