Business News of Monday, 7 August 2017
Source: citibusinessnews.com
2017-08-07
Yoofi Grant, CEO of Ghana Investment Promotion Center
The Ghana Investment Promotion Center (GIPC) has intensified efforts to woo Israeli investors into the country’s Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector.
The move, according to GIPC is in recognition of Israel’s position in the development of ICT services in the world.
Speaking to Citi Business News after a meeting with the Israel-Ghana Chamber of Commerce at the residence of the Israeli Prime Minister, the CEO of GIPC Mr. Yofi Grant announced that a number of Israeli IT companies have expressed interest to work in Ghana.
“We think that in certain sectors, it is important to engage some of our foreign partners. For example, the Israeli Chamber of Commerce, we all are pretty clear that Israel has an edge in the innovation space and you must have heard of some of the money they are raising with start-ups”.
“In this year, one start-up in Israel alone was bought for 15 billion dollars by Intel. We are looking at what we can do together to also facilitate innovation to Ghana to make it an innovation hub,” he said.
Mr. Grant stated that a number of Israeli businesses have shown interests to invest in Ghana.
He assured that government will put in all the necessary measures to encourage Ghanaian businesses to partner with some of the Israeli firms.
“For us at GIPC, it is not just about bringing foreigners to invest in Ghana but also create an opportunity from Ghanaian companies to partner them. That is the only way we can transfer knowledge and skills to our own indigenous people,” he maintained.
He added that a number of the Israeli firms have also shown interest in investing in Ghana’s agriculture sector for export.
The move, according to him will boost Ghana export earnings and create jobs since the products will be processed here in Ghana.
“In the sector of agriculture, we had serious engagement with Israeli businesses. They have a leading edge in transformative agriculture. There are keen people looking at that,” he stressed.
