President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is expected to be in China sometime this year to explore investment opportunities and also help fashion out a new blueprint for China-Africa cooperation, the outgoing Chinese ambassador to Ghana, Madam Sun Boahong has confirmed.
“I think that this year will be a very important one for our bilateral relations because the President will be in China for a forum on the China-Africa Cooperation. He will meet with the Chinese leadership and both sides will work out the new blueprint for China-Africa Cooperation for the next few years,” Madam Sun Boahong, said at Parliament House in Accra when she called on the leadership of Parliament.
Her courtesy call forms part of preparations for her departure from the country, after serving in Ghana for close to seven years.
Madam Boahong also disclosed that her country has invited Ghana to participate in an upcoming National Import Fair that includes other African countries.
“Ghana is invited as one of the key African countries to participate in this Fair. The purpose of this Fair is to open up the Chinese market to our developing partners, so the government of Ghana coordinated by the Ministry of Trade is organising government agencies and people to participate in the fair. We will open our markets, we will share more and provide more for the development of both countries.”
China, which has been a very close and faithful ally of Ghana since independence, she assured will solidly and steadily make greater contributions to the country’s economic restructuring and industrialisation.
Ghana and China have enjoyed longstanding diplomatic relations over the past decades. President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s administration is seeking to partner Chinese investors in exploiting bauxite deposits at Nyinam and Kibi with a potential value of US$460billion, to fund the construction of thousands of kilometres of railway lines, roads, irrigation facilities and dams among others.
Ghana’s exports to China hit US$1.4 billion – a historical high – last year, and China was the leading source of investments in the country.
The Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) recorded 25 Chinese projects to be executed in various parts of the country. India and the United Kingdom followed with 19 and 13 projects respectively.
In Ghana, Chinese investments span airlines, and the extractives and energy sectors among others.
