Ghana, Korea deepen co-operation
Ghana and the Republic of Korea have established close relations and cooperation in various fields, including politics, economy, culture, education and reciprocal exchanges, between their people.
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Despite the geographical distance between the two countries, international cooperation between Ghana and Korea has grown steadily since Korea first established diplomatic relations with Ghana in 1977, and this was highlighted at a dinner in Accra recently to mark the Korean National Foundation Day.
The Minister for Fisheries and Aquaculture, Madam Sherry Ayittey, who represented President John Dramani Mahama at the dinner, said the relations between Ghana and Korea had been characterised by the desire of the two countries to foster mutual development aspirations in pursuit of global peace.
Exchange of visits
This desire,she said, had resulted in exchange of visits between the two countries to expand cooperation, adding that the two countries shared common values and reciprocated traditional bonds of friendship, leading to the maintenance of growth and economic development, by way of attracting more Koreans to Ghana through the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) and the Korea Economic Development Cooperation Fund.
Madam Ayittey mentioned that some of the projects being implemented in Ghana, with support from Korea, are the construction of a petrol storage depot at Buipe, the Bolgatanga pipeline, and the Wa water supply system, with KOIKA promoting people-to-people exchange programmes.
In his address, the Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to Ghana, Mr Kyun Jea-min, said Korea had become increasingly attractive to Ghana both as a source of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), technological transfers and the sharing of knowledge and expertise, leading to significant contributions towards the ongoing economic development between the two countries.
According to him, economically, the relationship between Ghana and Korea has entered an unprecedented stage in which Korean companies were opening more branches and seeking business opportunities in Ghana, adding that “last year our bilateral trade recorded US$ 392 million, which is the highest and four times the size of that of 2005. Taking into consideration the complementarity of the economic structure of Ghana and Korea, our economic perspective is very bright.”
Overseas Development Assistance
He said the Korean government through KOICA had in recent years successfully carried out Oversees Development Assistance (ODA) projects such as the Accra Vocational Training Centre, Koforidua Auto -Mechanic Centre, the Dawhenya Integrated Rural Development Project and the Akumadan Irrigation and Tomato Cultivation Project.
Besides these, there are many other on-going grant projects in the area of energy, health and sanitation, indicating that in effect the cumulative amount of Korea's grants to Ghana has grown to US$ 30 million as of last year.
He said Korea’s grants to Ghana had enabled the country to provide goods and services to key sectors of the economy such as agriculture, gender, health, power transmission, education and e-administration for MDAs to improve efficiency and productivity of the public sector.
He mentioned that KOICA had been undertaking a lot of projects over the years and some recent examples of the cooperation include “Dawhenya Integrated Rural Development Project” successfully finished last April, and currently on-going projects such as a maternal and child health care project and a WASH project in the Volta Region, a capacity building project on power transmission system and more.