Invest in Africa, an investment Consortium, is charging government to identify a number of local budding companies in the extractive industries to extend some support to them to become global giants.
Ghana, for several decades, despite its gold mines and other resources cannot boast of indigenous global giants in the mining industry.
Country Manager for Invest in Africa, Sam Brandful tells Citi Business News in addition to government creating an enabling environment for businesses to thrive they have to identify and support some of them that have potential to grow to become global giants.
“We talk about how South East Asia, the Asian tigers have grown and so on. There is evidence to show that there was concentrated effort on the part of their government to build up local companies.”
According to him “Government must identify those who have the potential and give them all the support that they require to grow.”
Sam Brandful however noted that businesses will still need to exhibit their potential to attract support.
“Of course it must be reciprocal, we must see that, as the support from government is being channeled to them, they are indeed also growing in terms of employment and the ability to actually undertake the work, project that they are required to do” he said.
Invest in Africa focuses on supporting local Ghanaian businesses by providing greater access to finance, skills and markets, making it easier for international companies working in Ghana to source locally and at a large scale.
Invest in Africa is supported by an increasing number of partners made up of Tullow Oil, Ernst & Young, Lonrho and Ecobank as global partners; while GIPC, AGI, UT Bank, Guinness Ghana Breweries Limited (GGBL) and AB & David Law make up the group of local partners.
By: Kwaku Anim Boadu/citifmonline.com/Ghana