Free Zones Board targets $6bn exports next year
The Executive Secretary of the Ghana Free Zones Board (GFZB), Mr Michael Okyere Baafi, says the board is hoping to generate $6 billion in export revenue next year.
Last year, the board generated $2.3 billion and is keen on improving the figure this year.
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One of the interventions to help achieve the target is by attracting foreign direct investments, especially from investors in Eastern Europe and Asia.
"We are targeting investors from these regions because we know they have the clout and the financial muscle to provide that critical funding,” Mr Baafi told the Daily Graphic in an interview in Prague, where the board is holding its first-ever trade mission.
Seventeen companies are participating in the mission, which is led by a Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Carlos Kingsley Ahenkorah.
It is seeking to leverage the economic relationship between the two countries to attract investments into Ghana.
The trade mission is being organised by the GFZB in collaboration with the Ghana Embassy in the Czech Republic.
It also seeks to develop partnership between companies of the two countries.
Mr Baafi said while the board was seeking foreign direct investments, it would continue to assist local businesses to identify opportunities for strategic partnerships.
Mission
The trade mission includes a Deputy Minister of Information, Mr Perry Okudzeto; the Executive Secretary of GFZB, Mr Michael Okyere Baafi; the deputy Executive Secretary of the board, Mrs Kate Abbeo; officials of GFZB, the Chief Executive of the Tema Oil Refinery, Mr Isaac Osei, and some Ghanaian business executives representing the 17 Ghanaian companies.
Some of the companies participating in the mission are Tema Oil Refinery, Tropical Cable and Conductor Limited, Fraga Oil Ghana Limited, Microfinance and Small Loan Centre, Wildam Engineering Services Limited, Dihoc Footwear Division Limited and Phoenix Insurance Limited.
The rationale for organising the trip was to give meaning to the GFZB's focus of attracting foreign direct investments and also provide a platform for the participating Ghanaian companies to seek strategic partnerships and strategic investors with their Czech counterparts.
The board is the implementer of Ghana’s free zones concept through the export processing zones (EPZs).
The EPZs encourage businesses to manufacture, process, develop commercial services and export them. The concept gives tax incentives to businesses that export 70 per cent of their produce and has since its establishment in 1995 played a key role in raising the country’s foreign exchange levels.