EU delegation visits SAEMA

Story: Moses Dotsey Aklorbortu, Takoradi
06/03/08
THE French Ambassador to Ghana, Mr Pierre Jacquemot, has said that from all indications Ghana stands tall as the most preferred investment destination in West Africa.
He said what the country needed to work on enthusiastically at present was to control the rate of inflation, improve and sustain energy supply to commerce and industry as the country was going to see more investments.
“It used to be France and a few others, but now many countries are coming in strongly and that is a good sign that warrant the control of inflation and constant energy supply”.
The ambassador told the Daily Graphic during a tour by EU envoys to some European Union and French investments as well as some EU funded projects aimed at helping to reduce poverty in the Western Region.
The tour was also to enable the envoys to interact with the chiefs, district and metropolitan chief executives on their contributions to the socio-economic development of the country under the decentralised system.
He said energy supplies and the country’s rate of inflation were issues which were very important to investors and that with the current favourable investment climate there was the need to tackle issues that would ensure reliable and sustainable energy supplies and keep the rate of inflation in check.
“With what I have seen in the Western Region and the country today, the zeal, rich human resource, growing democracy, good governance, stability and the quest of the people to succeed, the future is bright for the country,” he said.
Mr Jacquemot said with the progress made on the French investments and the success of some EU funded projects which were expected to help transform the rural economy, Ghana was positioned to take her place as an investment destination in the West African sub- region.
The ambassador said France was following Ghana’s discovery of oil with keen interest and that it was waiting for a report indicating that the amount of oil that had been discovered was in significant commercial quantities.
He said by May this year, the report might be made known and France would move in to stake her position as she was currently watching events unfold from the sidelines.
He expressed optimism that the problems which bedevilled other countries which had discovered such mineral deposits would not happen to Ghana as the country had many examples to learn from in the sub-region.
Besides, Mr Jacquemot said, the country still had its rich culture and the chieftaincy institutions in place to provide useful platforms and information about the people in various operational communities.
“The chiefs are close to the people and through them a lot of information about the communities could be derived and through them information about investors could be disseminated, ” he said.
He stressed the need for companies in the country to see how best to involve the indigenous people in their operations and assist them socially to promote harmonious relationship between them and the host communities.
He commended the Ghana Rubber Estate Limited (GREL), one of the French investments in the country, for establishing good rapport between the company and the communities they were operating in and from which it employed the chunk of its workforce and for providing the communities with some social amenities.
The delegation visited the GREL plantation at Abura and some rubber outgrower plantation projects where more than 400 individual outgrowers were being assisted to plant more than 1,200 hectares over a five year period.
To date about 3,500 hectares of the old rubber plantation of individuals and co-operatives groups had been rehabilitated with funding from the project coming from Agence Francaise de Developement (AFD), IDA/World Bank and the government of Ghana as against 1,300 hectares which produced about 2,000 tons of rubber per annum for export.
The tour also took the delegation to the port of Takoradi where they were joined by the minister and officials of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and President’s Special Initiative, officers of the metropolitan assembly and the chief of Essikado.