Ghana’s 24-Hour Economy Secretariat has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Hunan Architectural Design Institute Group (HADI Group) of China to deliver master planning and infrastructure design for the Volta Economic Corridor (VEC), the centrepiece of President John Mahama’s industrial transformation agenda.
The agreement, signed at the Office of the President in Accra, is expected to provide critical technical expertise for the development of the Volta Economic Corridor, a flagship project aimed at boosting agro-industrial production, exports, and job creation.
Presidential Adviser Augustus Goosie Tanoh, who heads the 24H+ Secretariat, said the partnership builds on engagements held in Changsha, the capital of China’s Hunan Province, in January 2026, where both sides committed to practical rather than symbolic cooperation. He drew a direct parallel between Hunan’s own transformation from an agrarian economy into a global engineering and construction hub, describing detailed planning as the foundation on which that transition was built, and the model Ghana is now deliberately following.
HADI Group Chairman He Liu, who led the Chinese delegation, said the two parties entered the agreement with existing trust and shared networks, expressing confidence in the strength of the partnership’s foundation.
Under the MOU, HADI Group will support Ghana in master planning and spatial design for key development zones within the corridor, including layouts for agroecological and industrial parks, as well as infrastructure networks covering roads, water supply systems, sewage treatment, and pipeline systems. The agreement also covers support for project structuring using Engineering, Procurement and Construction plus Finance (EPC+F) and EPC plus Investment (EPC+I) models, which are expected to ease pressure on public finances by mobilising private sector funding for infrastructure.
Both parties have agreed to begin immediately with five pilot projects, two industrial parks and three agroecological parks, where conceptual design work will commence to refine the approach before scaling across the full corridor.
The Volta Economic Corridor stretches from the port of Tema through Akosombo, across the Afram Plains, through Yeji, Buipe, and Yapei, and into Tamale. It is designed to integrate over two million hectares of arable land into agroecological parks connected to industrial zones and multimodal transport infrastructure. Renewable energy installations along the route are targeted to bring power costs below seven cents per kilowatt hour. The African Development Bank (AfDB) has already committed funding for feasibility studies on the multimodal transport component, and the corridor is projected to create more than 500,000 direct jobs.
The HADI Group agreement adds Chinese technical design capacity to a project that is steadily attracting multilateral and private financing commitments.
