Ghana needs aggressive strategic branding campaign - President, US-Ghana Chamber
The President of the US-Ghana Chamber of Commerce, Ms Florence Torson-Hart, has urged the Ghana government to consider what she describes as “strategic branding campaign for Ghana” to increase the awareness of the abundant opportunities in the country.
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According to her, the initiative “will increase the familiarity of consumers in the United States (US) and elsewhere with all that Ghana has to offer and that will hopefully accelerate the inflow of the much-needed Foreign Direct Investment (FDIs)”.
At a luncheon hosted by the chamber for the Ghanaian delegation on an investment mission to the US on June 19 in Philadelphia, Mr Torson-Hart said, “A quick Google search on Ghana does not yield a consistent marketable result that will drive a lot of consumers to visit, so more action should be taken to bring it up to date.”
The delegation, which has since returned home, was led by the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Investment Promotion Council, Mr Yofi Grant. Other members on the team were the CEOs of the Ghana Tourism Authority and Ghana Venture Capital Trust, Mr Akwasi Agyemang and Mr Yaw Owusu-Brempong, respectively.
Others included CEOs of private sector businesses such as CDH Insurance, CDH Savings and Loans Limited, KEK Insurance Group, uniSecurities, Frontline Capital Advisors and EPP Books Services.
The call comes at a time when the GIPC has initiated efforts to raise the awareness of the opportunities in the country to a higher level by devising a yet-to-be-unveiled strategic branding of the country to make it more attractive to investors.
Partnerships
Ms Torson-Hart underscored the importance of partnerships among business people from different countries, saying: “The challenge of doing business in Ghana is born of a lack of experience and understanding of the business culture, which has been frustrating for a lot of US investors in particular.”
In spite of the challenge, she told the US chamber members that “good business still gets done everyday in Ghana” and charged them to link up with their Ghanaian counterparts to enable them to strike some positive deals.
She said chamber was in talks with key partners, including the Philadelphia Commerce Department, to organise a business mission to Ghana in the spring of 2018.
“We have facilitated trade with select companies in Ghana and are exploring the possibility of setting up a factory in Philadelphia area for a Ghanaian firm for distribution in the US,” Ms Torson-Hart added.
Making a case for investment in Ghana and Africa, she pointed to some research indicating that most economic growth in the upcoming years could be from the developing world and that global gross capital inflows would reach between US$13 trillion and US$23 trillion by 2030.
Of the amount, the US-Ghana Chamber President said, “Developing countries will receive between 47 and 60 per cent.”
She added that it was also estimated that developing countries’ share of gross global inflows would surpass that of the advanced countries by 2025 because developing countries would become substantially more important as sources and destinations of global capital flows and would move closer to the centre of the world economic stage.
“Ghana is well positioned to be one of the biggest recipients of these investment/capital inflows. Ghana is strategically located as the entry point and hub for most businesses that want to expand into the West Africa sub-region,” she said.
Challenges
Ms Torson-Hart recalled the State Department’s July 2016 report which for most part lauded Ghana as being investor friendly but also noted that “implementation and enforcement of the laws, policies and actions needed to attract FDIs continue to lag”.
She pointed to the burdensome bureaucracy, weak productivity, costly and difficult financial services, underdeveloped infrastructure, ambiguous property laws, frequent power and electricity cuts and unskilled labour force as some of the other challenges hindering FDI inflows to the levels deserving of Ghana.
Ms Torson-Hart expressed the hope that the government would take the challenges seriously and devise immediate means to address them if FDI inflows were to increase.
Ease of doing business
Responding to issues raised, Mr Grant said the wave of change to have all the challenges fixed for the better were on course in Ghana.
He said the government was not pleased with the position of Ghana on the Ease of Doing Business index and noted that, “There are many initiatives being undertaken to make it better.”
He mentioned the bureaucracies in business registration, land and tax reforms among others as some of the challenges being addressed to better the country’s position.
“There is hope for better results in due course to help attract more FDIs than we have now and I want you to watch that space,” he said optimistically.
