Ghana, China must deepen economic cooperation — GHACHIFA

The Ghana-China Friendship Association (GHACHIFA) has said it is time for Ghana to look at deepening economic co-operation with China.

“Ghana has never looked at China the way it should and it is time it did so to take advantage of the potential the Chinese economy offers, as well as its emerging growth in global affairs,” it stressed.

In an interview as part of activties to commemorate the 58th anniversary of the treaty of friendship between the two countries, the President of the association, Ambassador Kojo Amoo-Gottfried, underscored the need for better education and understanding of the China and Ghana bilateral relations.

“It is important to revitalise the friendship because the two nations have a lot to gain,” he said.

Treaty

On August 18,1961, Ghana signed a treaty of friendship with the People’s Republic of China.

But the relationship was suspended in 1966 after the overthrow of Dr Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s First President. It was only around 1972 that the ties were restored.

Since then, Ghana and China have had relationships based on government to government and less on people to people.
But there had not been any association to seek the interest of the two countries.

GHACHIFA was, therefore, formed in 1999 and officially inaugurated in 2001 to promote and deepen relations between the peoples of the two countries.

Technological know-how and market
According to Mr Amoo-Gottfried, Ghana could take advantage of the huge Chinese market to explore business opportunities and economic cooperation.

He said, for instance currently, Ghana could not even take shea butter into China and it had not been able to sign any economic co-operation with China to be able to make their market accessible to Ghana’s manufacturers.

“That is the issue we must be looking at. We can have a better advantage under this kind of arrangement,” he stated.

He said chocolate was something that Ghana was noted for because of its quality saying “ there is a Korean who produces one of the best chocolates in Japan called ‘Ghana’. This is a popular product over there. If we can manage to get one Chinese to eat one chocolate a day, we can make a lot of money.”

According to Mr Amoo-Gottfried, if Ghana took her cocoa and even processed it into cocoa butter and set up a factory in China, it would give the country more money stressing that Ghana stood to gain if it was thinking in the right way.

“Also, our investment promoters should be looking at partnerships and not only bringing people into the system to come and invest because that is where technological transfer can come from”, he further stated.

Capital and technology

He also said China had the capital, technological know-how and the market and “it is up to our political leaders to see what best they could get from the Ghana-China relations.

“Why are we not taking advantage of these but only encouraging them to come to Ghana as investors? We need to think in broader terms and GHACHIFA is pushing to expose them to Ghanaians to establish that contact that is necessary for this to take place,” he stated.

Galamsey menace

On curbing the Chinese involvement in the galamsey menace, Mr Amoo-Gottfried said it was not good for Ghana’s natural resources to be destroyed so the association had a discussion with the Chinese authorities in Ghana on how best to stop the practice.

He also questioned how the Chinese knew the places to carry out the illegal mining in the country, adding that it was mostly Ghanaians who were getting them into those areas.

“It is equally the duty of all Ghanaians to show much more concern and make sure that this does not happen,” he said.

He said it was incumbent on the governments of Ghana and China to make sure that the illegal mining did not persist.

The acting National Organising Secretary of GHACHIFA, Mr Henry Yaw Mallet, for his part said the galamsey issue was about illegal mining and that it was time to sanitise the mining environment.

He called for a strict licensing regime to regulate small and medium scale mining in the country.

He said the mining industry needed to be revolutionised and structured so as to reap the benefits.

Friendship agenda

Mr Mallet further said the friendship agenda was an important factor to enhance ties between Ghana and China.