AUSTRIAN TRADE AND INVESTMENT MISSION TO VISIT GHANA

The Austrian Federal Chamber of Commerce and industry has decided to send a trade and investment Mission to Ghana from 7th to 10th October, 2007.
This follows a briefing on trade and investment opportunities given to the Federal Chamber of Commerce in Vienna on 10th September, 2007, by His Excellency Mr. Kwabena Baah-Duodu, Ghana’s Ambassador to Switzerland and Austria and Permanent Representative to the UN Offices in Geneva and Vienna.
In his address, Ambassador Baah-Duodu took participants through some of the major political and economic policies the current administration had adopted since 2001, to usher Ghana into a “Golden Age of Business”. He explained that by virtue of Government’s prudent economic policies, which hinged on good governance and the rule of law, all the country’s major macro-economic indicators had been impressively positive, pointing to an optimistic outlook for attaining the targeted middle income status by 2015.
He enumerated several pro-business reform initiatives and programme interventions by the Government of His Excellency President Agyekum Kufuor which, according to him, had positively contributed to improve all the key indicators of pro-business activities such as simplifying and reducing the time and cost of business registration, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, registering properties and protecting investors. He mentioned some of the legislations by Government, which he said were aimed at providing conducive environment for private sector participation in the various sectors of the economy. Some of the legislations cited included the Ghana Investment Promotion Act 1994 (Act 478); the Petroleum Exploration and Production Law; the Minerals and Mining Act 1994 (Act 475); the Investment and Stock Exchange Act (Act 384) and the Free Zones Act 1995 (Act 504). He urged participants to seize the current favourable investment opportunities in the country to invest in the Ghanaian economy. He also expressed hope that the impending trade mission would further take the economic and technical cooperation between Ghana and Austria to new heights.
Some of the concerns raised by the participants and addressed during the discussion included Ghana’s macro-economic stability, regional commerce vis-à-vis the ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Protocols, opportunities and challenges within the country’s healthcare and educational sectors, agro-processing and product packaging, property rights and ownership, among others.
Ambassador Baah-Duodu assured the participants that Government would not do anything which would negate Ghana’s macro-economic stability just for electioneering purposes.
Participants in the Forum included Austrian Entrepreneurs and heads of businesses, some of whom had registered to join the mission to Ghana. Also present were the Regional Director, Africa and Middle East of the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber of Commerce and Industries, Mr. Bruno G. Freytag; the Ghana Honorary Consul-General in Vienna, Mr. Hans Einhaus and other officials from the Austrian Federal Chamber of Commerce as well as the Federal Ministry of European and International Affairs.
In his brief opening remarks earlier on, Mr. Freytag underscored the current economic achievements chalked by Ghana and urged participants to consider the country as one of the most favourable investment destinations in Africa. He encouraged participants who had not as yet registered to do so to make the mission successful.
Ambassador Kwabena Baah-Duodu was accompanied by Mr. Kofi Amenya, the Minister-Counsellor at the Trade Section of the Geneva Mission and Mr. Daniel Okaiteye-Blessyn, Counsellor at the Embassy in Berne.

Ghana Press Releases of Tuesday, 25 September 2007 - AUSTRIAN TRADE AND INVESTMENT MISSION TO VISIT GHANA