We exist for local businesses too – GIPC

Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) CEO Yoofi Grant has dismissed assertions that GIPC only supports foreign companies.

Under the GIPC Act, 2013 (Act 865), the Centre is mandated to encourage and promote investments in Ghana, to provide for the creation of an attractive incentive framework and a transparent, predictable and facilitating environment for investments in Ghana.

The Centre is there to initiate and support measures that will enhance the investment climate in Ghana for both Ghanaian and non-Ghanaian enterprises.

However, some Ghanaian companies have accused the Centre of having the interest of only foreign companies at heart to the detriment of indigenous companies.

But speaking at the National Policy Summit in Accra on Monday, 15 May, Mr Grant said: “Local investors may also register with the GIPC if they require the incentive that we give for investment. But I inquired before I went to GIPC and I asked, ‘Why is it that our local companies do not want to register with GIPC? …Many of them do not want you to know their business so they rather stay in their corner and do their business yet complain that we do not give them incentives.

“Indeed I want to state to the general public that GIPC is taking a new approach to business. We are there as much for the foreign businesses as we are even more for the indigenous investor. We want to grow big businesses indigenously, we want to get our indigenous businesses to also grow, so we will look at you with that eye to ensure that our local businesses also grow and demystify that idea that we are only there for the foreign businesses.”