Business forum set for Accra
ZIMBABWE and Ghana are expected to hold a business forum here at the end of this month, a platform that will bring together business persons from the two countries in a development that is also expected to strengthen bilateral relations.
The forum, which is expected to draw more than 400 participants, is being organised by the two countries’ embassies and will see business persons from the two countries share notes and identify areas of cooperation between the two countries. Preparations for the forum also coincided with a visit by Deputy Prime Minister Thokozani Khupe to Accra.
She is also expected to meet both members of the public and private sector to learn from them how women in Zimbabwe can best be empowered. The forum will be held on May 31 2010.
In an interview, Zimbabwean Ambassador to Ghana Mrs Pavelyn Musaka said preparations for the forum were at an advanced stage.
She said she was liasing with Zimbabwe Investment Authority, Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce from Harare and Ghana Investment Promotion Centre in Accra. “It is quite exciting because the forum is coming at a time when Ghana has just made a discovery of oil which is estimated to realize about US$20 billion in the next 20 years when fully explored,” said Mrs Musaka.
“We are inviting members from both the public and private sector, women entrepreneurs, Zimbabweans in the diaspora to attend the forum.
“The discovery of oil in Ghana’s Western region is also expected to assist downstream industries like those in the manufacturing, infrastructure, agri-business, construction, among others.”
Zimbabweans will share with their Ghananian business counterparts their knowledge in commercial agriculture, tourism and construction, said Mrs Musaka.
“Our embassy here is convinced that Zimbabwe has a lot to benefit, since Ghana imports 70 percent manufactured products and there are real chance of creating a lucrative lunch markets here for our small to medium enterprise and other businesses,” said Mrs Musaka.
Trade between Zimbabwe and Ghana has been low and the forum will give a platform for the two countries to identify possible areas of cooperation as the two countries seeks to enhance trade and bilateral cooperation between them.
“The coming of the Deputy Prime Minister of Zimbabwe cannot be at a better time than now, as we prepare this forum. We hope that she will also share experience from both the public and private sector here on possible areas of cooperation,” she said.
DPM Khupe was accompanied by Public Works Minister Theresa Makone on an official four-day visit where she will met leaders from both the public and the private sector.
She visited Elimina Castle, in Central region on Monday, where there is a museum and she was shown a holding house for slaves while they awaited their transportation to Europe during the slave trade.
Ghana has preserved the house and turned it into a museum and monument as it reflects the slave trade that saw many Africans being captured by Europeans to go and work as slaves.
The DPM was in Bangladesh where she met Government representatives, central bank management and Grameen Bank in her quest to establish a women’s bank.
It is envisaged that the women’s bank would lend money to women with no stringent conditions attached like requiring of collateral security.
Requirement of collateral has in the past years been a stumbling block in Government’s efforts to empower the marginalised, as many financial institutions have demanded collateral as a pre-condition to lend loans.
Labels: ACCRA, BUSINESS, THOKOZANE KHUPE
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Ghana says in talks for at least $1 billion IMF support
Written by Kwasi Kpodo
Thursday, May 07, 2009 3:23:53 PM
ACCRA (Reuters) - Ghana is in talks with the International Monetary Fund to secure a total of at least $1 billion of support to prop up its foreign exchange reserves, the Finance Ministry said on Thursday.
The West African country, the world's second biggest cocoa grower, is grappling with a swelling budget deficit and trade imbalances after the cost of food and fuel imports surged to record highs last year. Its woes have unsettled some investors holding its debut Eurobond.
"We discussed program options, which are essentially the standby arrangement or Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF)," the Finance Ministry said in a written statement provided to Reuters, adding that a further round of talks were due next week.
It said the PRGF had an advantage of concessional funding, at a fixed 0.5 percent interest rate payable over 10 years, as opposed to a market-based interest rate on the stand-by which also has a shorter repayment period of less than 5 years.
Ghana expects to receive $420 million in the third quarter of this year as part of an IMF commitment at the Group of 20 summit in London to increase its allocations of special drawing rights (SDRs) to member countries, the ministry said.
The SDR is an international reserves asset, created by the IMF to supplement the existing official reserves of its members.
The fund also agreed to support for Ghana's balance of payments gap, the ministry added.
"Preliminary indications are that the Fund's support could be in the order of around $600 million over a two-three-year period, which together with the additional special drawing rights allocation, would boost Ghana's gross foreign exchange reserves by around $1 billion," it predicted.
Ghana is grappling with a weakening national currency and inflation, currently at a five-year high and quickening.
It is also suffering from the impact of lower remittances sent home by workers abroad as the global economic crisis bites.
"Ghana desperately needs such assistance programs to be able to achieve any meaningful turnaround of the economy. ... Of course, it should be backed by prudent management," Ishac Diwan, the World Bank representative in Ghana, told Reuters separately.
Ghana's budget deficit stands at a provisional 14.9 percent of gross domestic product in 2008 -- a gap the new government of President John Atta Mills plans to narrow to 9.4 percent of GDP by the end of 2009.
Labels: ACCRA, GHANA, IMF, PRGF
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World Bank to drop restrictions on food assistance
By Kabanda Chulu
Thursday September 04, 2008 [04:00]
THE World Bank yesterday called for immediate action to drop restrictions on food assistance in order to ensure that food gets to poor people affected by rising prices.
During the High Level Conference on Aid Effectiveness in Accra, Ghana, World Bank managing director Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala stated that ending restrictions would help bring relief to millions of people suffering from high food prices and would be a sign of the international community's commitment to making aid more effective.
"There is no time to waste and difficult conditions on food aid should be removed to ensure that food gets quickly to where it is most needed and ending these tedious requirements to buy food aid from donors will go a long way to ensuring food gets to poor people hit hardest by rising prices," Okonjo-Iweala stated. "We cannot afford to let the world's attention drift when people are still hurting from high food prices, they need our support now."
The World Bank are also calling for the immediate elimination of taxation on humanitarian food aid and an end to export bans by key producers on shipments to the least developed countries and those in fragile situations.
"These three steps namely, removing restrictions and conditions on food aid, increasing contributions to World Food Programme and lifting export bans and restrictions on the movement of humanitarian food will protect thousands of mothers and children at risk from malnutrition," stated Okonjo-Iweala. "With 100 million people at risk of falling into poverty from high food prices, we are calling on the international community to increase contributions to the World Food Programme, whose funding needs almost doubled to US$ 6 billion this year."
Since the previous conference held in 2005 in Paris, France, nearly 60 countries have made progress in strengthening their national development strategies. But much remains to be done, particularly on donor co-ordination, and there has been slippage in some areas.
In some areas, the donor community has failed to fulfil obligations, including the commitments made at the G8 Gleneagles summit to increase Official Development Assistance to US$ 130 billion per year. Currently there is a US$ 39 billion annual shortfall.
Labels: ACCRA, FOOD, World Bank
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Envoys to review aid effectiveness
By Joan Chirwa
Monday September 01, 2008 [04:00]
INTERNATIONAL development community representatives will tomorrow gather in Accra, Ghana to review progress and assess bottlenecks in improving aid effectiveness. Ministers from over 100 countries, heads of international financial institutions, donor organisations, and civil society organisations from around the world will gather for the third High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness.
Speaking ahead of the meeting which convenes tomorrow, Elliott Harris of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)'s Policy Development and Review department said the meeting would present opportunities to chart a course for strengthening aid, as the past three years had shown how difficult it had been to change processes and priorities that governed actions of donors and the beneficiaries.
The IMF noted that it had been difficult to bring about necessary changes to the processes, preferences, and priorities that have governed actions of donors and recipient countries for decades.
In months of preparation for the September 2-4 event, the IMF staff has worked with others to help define a consensus on the meeting agenda, in particular stressing the need for predictable aid flows.
According to the IMF, the Accra meeting comes at a crucial moment.
It is just past the midpoint to the 2010 target date set by the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and halfway toward the 2015 deadline for reaching the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set by the United Nations.
"Besides reviewing advances in, and assessing obstacles, the High Level Forum aims to broaden the aid effectiveness dialogue to newer actors and chart a course for strengthening the aid effort," IMF stated.
And Harris said the meeting was "very important" as it presented an opportunity to deepen implementation of the Paris Declaration by establishing an action-oriented agenda - the Accra Agenda for Action.
The Paris Declaration, endorsed on March 2, 2005, is an international agreement to which over 100 ministers, heads of agencies and other senior officials adhered and committed their countries and organisations to continue to increase efforts in harmonisation, alignment and managing aid for results with a set of monitorable actions and indicators. Zambia is party to the Paris Declaration.
Labels: ACCRA, DEVELOPMENT, IMF
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