Mahama calls on transnationals to invest in Africa

Vice President John Dramani Mahama on Wednesday called on transnational corporations to consider investing in Africa, as it presents one of the safest and stable climates for foreign direct investments (FDIs).

He said after two years of economic instability, restricted access to credit and reductions in investment inflows as a result of the world economic recession, African countries were beginning to see a turn around by registering growth.

A statement from the Office of the Vice President said he made the case for Africa at the World Leaders Investment Summit in the Chinese port city of Xiamen.

Vice President Mahama said a new wind of democratic and constitutional governance that had blown over the continent over the last two decades had made it an increasingly attractive destination for FDIs.

Assuring the 1,000 participants, including chief executives of global companies who attended the summit of “fantastic rate of returns” should they invest on the continent, the Vice President proclaimed: “Africa is ready for business…Africa is the next major frontier for investment.”

The summit, a major component of the on-going World Leaders Forum, being organized by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in conjunction with the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, has provided a platform for the leaders or their representatives to discuss what governments could do to foster sustainable and greener investment, and the fragile world economic recovery.

Using Ghana as a case study, the Vice President told the summit that the country registered a 600 per cent growth in FDIs between 2008 and 2010, a situation he attributed partly to the discovery of oil and gas in commercial quantities in 2007.

Vice President Mahama stated further that the influx of telecommunication service providers in Africa, and for that matter Ghana, had seen the country registering a growth in tele-density to about 50 per cent.

Ghana, he stressed, was reaching out to increase its competitiveness in attracting FDIs, especially within the framework of South-South cooperation.

“Our oil and gas industry presents an opportunity to develop and accelerate our economy in partnership with interested investors.”

Vice-President Mahama stressed the need for African countries to diversify their economies to attract investment in other equally important sectors rather than concentrating on particular sectors.

To avoid that phenomenon in Ghana, he said, the government had taken steps to invest massively in agriculture which sub-sector was expected to grow above seven per cent by the end of the year, stressing that the country would not be complacent with the inflow of petro-dollars into the economy.

On climate change and its attendant impact on African countries, he said the debate on it was settled, citing the floods in Pakistan and the melting of ice in the North and South Poles.

With five years left to attain the Millennium Development Goals, Vice President Mahama said it was critical to accelerate various sectors of the economies of African countries in particular, adding that Ghana, for instance, needed to do more with respect to sanitation, maternal and infant mortality.

He called for innovative ways of ensuring world food security since the issue would engage the world’s attention in the next few decades.

In that regard, he said, Africa was endowed with the requisite resources such as labour and arable land to produce enough to feed the world.

The Vice President advocated the need for African countries to consolidate the modest gains made in democracy, rule of law and good governance, noting that in recent times, investments were not determined by cuts in tax rates alone.

Mr Arthur Mutambara, Deputy Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, called for a freer and fairer world trade regime to ensure sustainable growth, saying there was the need for some creativity on the subject of protectionism.

“We should have protectionism with a plan and a timeline.”

He said poverty and climate change posed global challenges and ought to be addressed by global and not national leaders.

“The state alone cannot create the necessary infrastructure for sustainable development,” he said, adding, the issues should be tackled through regional blocks such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), European Union, Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA).

Source: GNA