GIPC Helps Entrepreneurs To Promote Their Businesses

The Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) on Thursday held a day’s workshop for entrepreneurs in the Central Region with a call on participants to take advantage of the facilities at the centre to market their businesses.

The workshop, held at the Cape Coast Town Hall, was to brainstorm with the regional administration, stakeholders and district committees to come out with a plan to promote investments in Ghana.

Mr Kofi Sakyiama Antiri, Director of Research and Investment Development of the GIPC, said the workshop was to encourage, promote and facilitate investments in all sectors of the economy.

He said GIPC sought to induce concrete foreign direct investment and promote direct partnership between local and foreign investors to enable the local investors to compete favourably on the international market.

Mr Antiri said a total of 149 investment projects and opportunities had been identified and packaged to form the portfolio of investment projects.

He said some of the GIPC portfolio of investment project covered agriculture and agri-businesses, manufacturing and industry, tourism, information and communication technology, energy, oil and gas, mining, infrastructure and financial services.

Mr Antiri encouraged the entrepreneurs and local businesses within the region to register with the centre free of charge to enable them to benefit from the incentives provided in the Investments Act 478.

He said the workshop was to brief participants on the opportunities for submitting project proposals and the advantages of going into joint ventures.

Mr Samuel Sarpong, Central Regional Minister, said as the GIPC was the Central Government’s Agency mandated to promote, facilitate and encourage investments in Ghana and that government believed that the units for development are the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs).

He said he was informed that GIPC had created a catalogue of projects, both private and public, which was available for partnership or funding adding that the projects were marketed on various platforms which had received partnership and funding whiles others were at various stages of interaction with prospective investors.

He, however, expressed regret that the Central Region did not feature prominently in the catalogue as they would have wished to.

He, therefore, encouraged them to use this platform to encourage their planning officers and participants to identify businesses in their various MMDAs and help them to develop proposals and business plans for increased investments in the region.