GIPC initiates moves to wean itself off gov’t subvention

The Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) has initiated moves to wean itself off government subvention.

Chief Executive of the GIPC, Mrs Mawuena Trebarh who made this known said, “We as a centre are well on the path to getting off government subvention.”

Speaking at a Graphic Business and Fidelity Bank breakfast meeting in Accra on Thursday, Mrs Trebarh said taking a look at some of the structural issues, it was abundantly clear that it was not something that can happen within a short period.

However, she said the Finance Minister was happy to hear that move had been initiated.

She noted there were a number of systemic issues that needed to be addressed to be able to achieve that.

Contributing to discussions on what was happening in the investment promotion phase, Mrs Trebarh said from the policy perspective, the legislation that has been put in place to support and promote investment in the country was very helpful.

She said a lot of the GIPC’s attention now was focused on targeting those sectors that would help to address challenges particularly in reducing imports.

This is because it was fundamentally important to address some of the challenges facing the country with regards to trade deficit, she noted.

She said the GIPC was focusing on improving on the quality of investments in the entire value chain and that for example in the agricultural space, “it is more important to be known not only as the country with the world’s best cocoa beans but also the country with world’s best chocolate.”

“So we already recognize that there is a gap in the investments across the entire value chain so its been our responsibility to support the business community to look again at the specific opportunities to invest and that’s why I talk about strategic targeted investment promotion.”

“What that has led to between 2013 and 2014 is more and doubled and increase in investments in the manufacturing sector.”

She noted that at the end of 2013, for instance, investments in the manufacturing sector was US$509.89 million but increased to US$1.377billion at the end of 2014.

“So I think that clearly shows that the targeted strategic approach to inviting investments would support that endeavor,” she said.

“That also means that we must build a critical mass of companies seeking to produce in the country and that is why our relationships in AGI and Ghana Chamber of Commerce with various business groups and associations become particularly important,” she added.

Mrs Trebarh explained that over the past two years, the sectors investment drive has been focused on those sectors where investments would spur on growth in the wider economy such as attention on the energy and infrastructure space.

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That has accounted for some of the improvements in the ease of doing business indicators. All of our outbound missions from the previous year are resulting in a lot of inbound missions this year with extreme interest in these two sectors in particular.

She said the first quarter report show an increase in investments in these sectors and expressed the hope that when the half year report is issued, there would a clearer picture of how the sector was performing.

Mrs Trebarh said a lot of their attention has been on the domestic business community and that their belief from the investment promotions perspective was that, “we cannot and should not be known as an agency that is only interested in foreign direct investment. We need to focus our attentions more on the domestic business community. And so there has been a number of in country initiatives undertaken by the centre.

Our approach is to increase the capacity of the Ghanaian entrepreneur to meet all of its interest in the medium to long term in investments and ensure that the sector is participating actively in all of these exciting investment opportunities that are available.

Other speakers at the breakfast meeting which was on the theme: "The Economy and Prospects for Business Confidence" were Mr Seth Terkper, Minister of Finance, Mr James Asare-Adjei, President of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), Ms Maidie Arkutu, CEO of Unilever Ghana and Mr Kenneth Ashigbey, Managing Director of Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL).