Mr. Charles Xavier-Luc Duval, Vice Prime Minister of Mauritius.
The Vice Prime Minister of Mauritius, Charles Xavier-Luc Duval, has said that joint venture deals at both the government and business levels will help his country and Ghana to enhance the prospects of the two emerging economies to diversify and create jobs for people of the two countries.
He said this when Standard Chartered Bank, Ghana, held a special cocktail party for the visiting vice prime minister of the southern island state.
He was accompanied to Ghana by about 31 investors to explore investment opportunities in sugar plantations and other areas such as tourism, ICT, animal-rearing among others.
Mr. Xavier-Luc Duval, who was in the country last week on a three-day state visit said the Ghanaian economy, which needs to be diversified, could benefit from the experiences and knowledge of Mauritius policy and business activities as the west African country attempts to revamp some critical sectors of the economy.
“The message that we have brought to Ghana is quite simple. Like Mauritius, Ghana has to diversify its economy. Like Mauritius, Ghana has to improve its growth and prosperity, and also create more jobs for its people and also fight poverty.
“Mauritius has travelled on the roads that Ghana has to travel. We have gone into textiles, sugar production, and we have developed our sea-food processing; among many other things that Ghana is about to enter, Mauritius entered some time ago.
“So the message that we have been sharing with government officials and private sector enterprises is that Mauritius will be very happy to share its experience and have joint ventures with businessmen here, as well as on government-to-government basis.
“We think that it is going to be a good partnership and a win-win one at that. We feel we have many things to learn, also, about the hybrid parliamentary system and other things that Ghana is doing well which we can import into Mauritius,” he said.
Ghana’s economy currently relies on the exploration of commodities such as gold and oil, as well as cocoa, while many other sectors remain grey.
Mr. Xavier-Luc Duval said while trade among regional bodies on the continent has improved, that of countries wanting to trade with those outside their regional territories is not encouraging.
“South to south relationships are more fruitful and beneficial than trying to go north to south, and we do believe that one of the issues we have to deal in Africa is intra-Africa trade — which is very low,” he said.
Currently, intra-African trade account for only 10 percent of total Africa trade volumes as compared to rates of 40 percent for intra-North American trade and about 60 percent of trade among Western European countries.
Though efforts have been made over the years to integrate African economies, a number of people are becoming frustrated at the slow pace of the integration process, and this has affected intra-Africa trade positions.
The CEO of Standard Chartered Bank, Kweku Bedu-Addo said there are structural issues in the Ghanaian economy that need to be resolved to enable competitiveness, which could be achieved with the right dialogue between businesses and government.
He said there are a number of business opportunities in the economy amidst the current challenges.
“Ghana has a population of about 25 million, most of whom are young — which shows that the future is very bright in terms of a consuming class that is emerging; a young population that is ready for jobs, an English-speaking country sited among Francophone countries and it is a great place to do business,” he said.
Source: Business & Financial Times
