Ghana has signed a US $117m bilateral Investment and Reform Partnership agreement with Germany to promote private investment in renewable energy and vocational training in Ghana.
Ghana’s Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, and Germany’s Deputy Minister for Economic Co-operation and Development, Friedrich Kitschelt, signed the agreement for both countries in the presence of President Akufo-Addo and visiting German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
The agreement is part of Germany’s G-20 Compact with Africa for sustainable economic development.
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The Partnership with Ghana is aimed towards improving conditions for sustainable private sector investment; investment in infrastructure, economic participation and employment in the country.
Following the signing of the agreement, the two Presidents addressed a joint press conference. Here, President Akufo-Addo described relations between the two countries as excellent. He further added that Ghana is the third biggest trading partner of Germany in sub-Saharan Africa.
President Akufo-Addo said Germany always stands out by some key elements that are worthy of emulation by Ghana, citing the Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) sector.
He said SMEs were the overwhelming numbers of enterprises in Ghana’s economy and how to scale them up and strengthen them was the major challenge of policy. This is an area where Ghana could profit very strongly from the German experience and the German model.
President Akufo-Addo said education was the main priority of his government. An a considerable investment state funds is in education with the vision of scaling up the capacity and competence of the nation’s workforce.
Renewable Energy
He noted that the German President had come to Ghana with a very impressive business delegation. He was hopeful that the delegation would have a very serious and meaningful intercourse with the Ghanaian business community so that the very strong relations that existed between the two countries would continue to deepen.
On his part, President Steinmeier noted that relations between Germany and Ghana had a long standing tradition which, in the last years, had been given additional impetus and were growing immensely.
As far as German businesses and industry is concerned, compared to other African countries, the infrastructure and the investment condition and climate is much better.
He said Ghana had shown the world in the last twelve months that it was possible to move away from divisive tendencies through determined actions and that the data available to Germany on Ghana had improved, stressing that they are more optimistic more than we were a year or two ago.
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President Steinmeier said interest on the part of Ghana in Germany’s investment was just as great because it was not only about investing in companies and plants but also about German companies bringing Germany’s educational model and technical experience to Ghana.
German commitment
The German President was full of praise for the government’s focus on education in spearheading efforts to build a Ghana beyond aid and pledged the commitment of Germany to supporting and co-operating with Ghana to make that vision possible and attainable.
“This is very important and as important as it is, we are more than happy to be of assistance and we will support you in that endeavor and co-operate with you in that regard and the joint declaration of intent on the design of a partnership to promote private investment and sustainable economic development is a sign of us respecting fully, what Ghana has been doing in the recent past,” he added.
