Development partners should offer the needed assistance
- Kufuor
Accra (Greater Accra)
03 December 2002- The Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) was virtually still on Monday
as the main index inched up by only 0.11 points.
The GSE All-Share
Index, the main market index, closed trading at 1,362.76 points from 1,362.65
points, with only two equities making gains. Shares that changed hands dropped
again slumped to 21,500 from 131,000 as big time investors stayed away. Change
for the year was 42.56 per cent from 42.55 per cent.
On the broader
market, Fan Milk Limited continued its slow push by gaining three cedis at
1,781 cedis and Ghana Commercial Bank was up by one cedi 3,516 cedis. Market
capitalisation ended at 5,108.75 billion from 5,108.53 billion cedis.
The following are the
last prices of listed equities in cedis:
ABL
390
AGC 18,807
ALW 3,700
BAT 1,001
CFAO 67
EIC
4,600
FML
1,781 +3
GBL 500
GCB 3,516 +1
GGL 1,040
HFC 955
MGL 254
MLC 270
MOGL
19,721
PAF 750
PBC 390
PZ 2,001
SCB
28,002
SPPC 387
SSB 3,963
SWL 285
TBL 4,550
UNIL
4,700
CMLT 460
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Accra (Greater Accra)
03 December 2002- Germany on Monday asked Ghana to deepen the development of
her investment climate to attract the required investment and make the economy
more prosperous.
Mr Harold Loeschner,
German Ambassador to Ghana, said Germany is desirous of taking her relations
with Ghana onto a new level. However, it could only do that "if there is
rule of law, security and an environment where the private sector is allowed to
thrive and is the main mover of the national economy".
Mr Loeschner said
this at the beginning of two-day bilateral economic and technical consultations
in Accra. Dr Gheysika A. Agambila, Deputy Minister of Finance, is leading the
Ghanaian side, while Dr Andreas Pfeil, Deputy Head of Division, Federal Ministry
for Economic Cooperation and Development is leading the German delegation.
He said after 40
years, the two countries have agreed to focus on three main areas of
cooperation. These are agriculture and food security, especially in the
Northern Region, democracy and good governance in the area of decentralization
and the development of the private sector.
Mr Loeschner said bilateral
consultations with Ghana over the years have proved very fruitful and
"worthwhile". "Ghana's outstanding performance in maintaining
peace and stability, economic stability and role in ensuring integration in
Africa is creditable and will be supported.
"Ghana's anchor
as an enclave of stability merits our support," he added. Mr Loschner said
cooperation between the two countries would henceforth ensure that development
cooperation falls in line with stated objectives in the Ghana Poverty Reduction
Strategy.
He said
implementation of the processes since the last consultations is on track and
the three areas are being followed. However, the Ambassador said, technical
implementation procedures have to be tightened. "There are some loose ends
and these must be looked at again."
On-going German
assisted projects and programmes throughout the country would be assessed
during the consultations to find out if they are on track while adjustments are
made to achieve stated objectives.
New programmes would also
be considered for financial commitments to be made during the next
inter-governmental negotiations in Bonn next year. Dr Agambila thanked Germany
for her continued support to Ghana since independence during which she has
received a total of 860 million euros in financial and technical assistance.
He said the two-day
consultations would offer Ghana the opportunity to critically examine all
pertinent issues in the areas of cooperation between the two countries and make
recommendations to further strengthen the partnership.
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Accra (Greater Accra)
03 December 2002- Ghana and the European Union (EU) on Monday signed a 320
billion-cedis (40 million Euros) agreement that would assist the mining sector
to attract investment so as to regain its economic importance as a major
foreign exchange earner for the country.
The contract signed
under the Mining Sector Support Programme is aimed at increasing private
sector-led exploration activities and investments in mining through the
strengthening the sector's regulatory and support agencies.
It is also to make
available funds for feasibility studies on improving the Takoradi Port and
connecting railway lines. It would in addition provide resources for geological
data collection and dissemination, a nationwide socio-economic and
environmental impact assessment of large scale mining in order to help mitigate
the adverse environmental effects of mining, especially mercury pollution, in
small-scale mining.
The Minister of
Finance, Mr Yaw Osafo-Maafo signed on behalf of Ghana and Mr Poul Nielson,
European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, initialed for the
EU.
Under the terms of
the agreement the Ghana government would have to continue with the programme of
re-organising the mining sector, revising the legal framework for the mining sector,
including a new mining code, and providing adequate resources to Mining Sector
Institutions.
Mr Osafo-Maafo said
the various activities lined up in the agreements tied in with government's
programme to sustain the mining sector's contribution to the overall
improvement in the performance of the national economy.
"Government has
identified the discovery of new mineral resources, the gradual replacement and
diversification of presently exploited ores as part of its strategies to help
alleviate poverty by increasing employment and incomes of people in the mining
areas," he said.
The Minister appealed
to the EU to ensure that equipment was provided in efforts to build the
capacity of institutions under the programme. "In addition where studies
are proposed, we need to ensure that studies are conducted as joint effort
between foreign and local consultants."
Mr Osafo-Maafo
expressed the hope that the EU would adopt simplified procedures to ensure the
timely release of funds for the implementation of the programmes. Mr Nielson
stressed the need for a review and modernisation of Ghana's mining code, saying
it did not compare well with similar codes in other investment destinations.
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Accra (Greater Accra)
03 December 2002- The Office of the Senior Minister will organise a four-day
workshop on "Investments and Finance in the Golden Age of Business"
at Elmina in the Central Region from Thursday 5 December.
A statement signed by
Mr Sammy Osei-Bonsu, Special Assistant to the Senior Minister, said the
objective of the workshop is to stimulate new thinking and generate ideas on
investment and finance support for a vision of a private sector-led era of
rapid national development.
The workshop, which
would be held at the Elmina Beach Hotel, would end on 8 December. The President
declared a ‘Golden Age of Business’ in Ghana when he took office in January
last year.
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Accra (Greater Accra)
03 December 2002- African countries have been urged to trade more among
themselves than look at markets in other economies because that was the only
way they could exploit the gains of division of labour.
Mr Paul Nielson, the
European Union Commissioner for Development Humanitarian Aid, who made the
call, said integration of the economies of countries on the continent was
important if Africa could play its part in the global world economy.
He was speaking at a
public lecture on the topic: "World Solidarity and Global Stability: The
role of the EU Development Policy." The commissioner said the absence of
intra-regional trade could facilitate smuggling and called for structures and
logistics to be put in place to encourage more trade among the countries on the
continent.
He said the
imposition of excessive tariffs on products from other developing countries was
an affront to promotion of integration and wider markets. Mr Nielson described
the Economic Community of West African States as a building block for integration,
saying it was the most advanced bloc in Africa.
He said the EU would
do all it could to help ECOWAS succeed in its efforts at integration of the
countries in the West African sub-region. "We are ready to move with those
ready to move in the good direction," he said.
Mr Nielson, however,
cautioned against the blind copy of stereotypes from Europe in their
integration process, saying, "doing things exactly the ways we have done
in Europe is not always recommendable."
He said the
importance of globalisation to create wealth is not enough if the gains were
not equitably distributed to reduce the level of poverty among the majority of
the people in developing countries.
On terrorism, Mr
Nielson said it should be seen as a shared problem since the attack was not
usually aimed at any one particular country. He called for the formulation of
adequate response to the menace, however, ruling out unilateral action in the
combat of terrorist activities.
Mr Nielson tasked the
international community to create a forum to promote peaceful interaction among
people to enable them to tolerate and live with each other.
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Accra (Greater Accra)
03 December 2002- President John Agyekum Kufuor on Monday appealed to Ghana's
development partners to provide the needed assistance to the government to
overcome the difficulties in the country's development efforts.
He cited the Tema Oil
Refinery (TOR), which had been plunged into a huge debt that was likely to
affect some financial institutions while local revenue mobilisation was also a
problem.
"We need more assistance
to be self-reliant in local revenue mobilisation", he added. President
Kufuor made the appeal when Mr Paul Neilson, EU Commissioner for Development
and Humanitarian Aid on a visit to the country paid a courtesy call on him at
the Castle, Osu.
He said the
government now had to concentrate more attention on investment programmes than
aid and such investments would be used in critical areas of the economy.
Mr Neilson said the
EU had an investment facility of about 2.4 billion Euros at the European
Investment Bank that was available and Ghana could access such a facility when
the appropriate fiscal measures were put in place.
He said the peace and
stability coupled with the rule of law and the government's policy on zero
tolerance for corruption when well implemented could be a boost to attract
investors into Ghana.
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