Ghana grants five-year tax holiday to new agro-processing enterprises
The Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) has offered a five-year tax holiday for new, wholly-owned Ghanaian agro-processing companies which use only local agricultural inputs as their raw material base.
The move together with a waive of the payment of a minimum foreign capital needed for companies’ registration under the GIPC Act, is part of a grand scheme to allow starter businesses enjoy free incentives and tax rebates to ensure their survival and viability.
A fact sheet made available to Ghana News Agency (GNA) indicated that the goal is to help these industries find their feet and thrive in a conducive manufacturing business environment – a critical pre-requisite for the building of a strong micro-economic stability.
After the initial 5-year tax holiday period, these industries shall as part of the package have corporate tax rates fixed according to their location – those based in Accra and Tema would enjoy 20 per cent tax relief whiles the other regional capitals excluding the three Northern regions, would have a relaxed tax of 10 per cent.
“GIPC believes as efforts are directed towards improving the current economic conditions prevailing in the country, it will boost the confidence of both existing and potential investors to retain and invest in the country”, the document said.
On general investments, it said the total investments recorded for the first quarter of 2015 has seen a significant increase of over 1000 per cent in terms of the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) value but a decline of 7 per cent in terms of the number of investments when compared with results recorded for the same period in 2014.
Quoting figures to back this, the document said the FDI component of the total estimated value of the projects registered during the first quarter of 2015 was GH₵ 4.208 billion ($1.122 billion), representing 97.56 per cent of the total estimated value.
The local Direct Investment (LDI) component for the same period stood at GH₵105.30 million ($28.08 million), representing 2.44 per cent.
The document said a total of 21 Ghanaian projects were registered during the first quarter of 2015, and these were located in seven regions, with Greater Accra registering the highest number of 13.
Source: GNA