The President of the US/Ghana Chamber of Commerce, Pennsylvania, Florence Torson Hart, has called on Ghanaian businesses to fully explore innovative strategies such mergers, joint ventures and strategic partnerships in their quest to scale up their operations.
"To truly take Ghanaian businesses to the next level, we must explore innovative strategies such as mergers, joint ventures, and strategic partnerships.
These models offer a powerful way for Ghanaian companies to build capacity, gain technical expertise, and scale their operations to compete on regional and global levels," she said.
Mrs Torson Hart was addressing a group of Ghanaian and US businesses at Temple University in Philadelphia today as part of the 3rd US-Ghana Business Summit and Expo.
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More than 20 businesses from Ghana are attending the week-long event, which provides a unique platform for them to engage and explore business opportunities with their US counterparts.
While identifying the enormous potential in partnerships between the two countries, Mrs Torson Hart said the US remains one of Ghana's top trading partners with total bilateral trade, reaching approximately $ 3.7 billion in 2022 alone.
Key sectors include oil and gas, agriculture (notably cocoa and processed foods), textiles, and increasingly, technology and digital services.
She said as Ghana continues to position itself as a leader in West Africa's economic transformation, the US has remained a strong ally, providing investment in infrastructure capacity building and entrepreneurship.
Against this background, Mrs Torson Hart said, for instance, that mergers can help local firms pool resources, improve operational efficiency, and enhance access to financing.
"Joint ventures with American firms can bring much needed technology, managerial expertise, and access to global markets," she said, adding that " consider how successful partnerships in agriculture, technology and energy have led to improved productivity, job creation and enhance competitiveness".
The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Freezones Authority, Dr Mary Awusi, pledged the commitment of the authority to help businesses operate differently, leveraging the new economic policies of the new government including its 24 hour economic strategy.
She asked the businesses to also take advantage of the numerous incentives on offer to boost their operations once they set up under the freezones concept.