By Buertey Francis BORYOR
The management of the Business and Financial Times (B&FT) has paid a courtesy call on the Swiss Ambassador to Ghana, Simone Giger, at the Embassy of Switzerland in Accra.
The strategic visit seeks to boost the existing relationship between Africa’s premier provider of relevant business information and the embassy, while also exploring possible areas of collaborations and mutual interest for the coming year.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the B&FT, Dr. Godwin Acquaye, while interacting with the Swiss Ambassador, highlighted the rationale behind the visit.
“Whenever the year draws to a close, we visit our clients and partners, particularly the embassies to rekindle our relationship with them, as well as get feedback on the services we render to them in terms of reportage,” he said.
He thanked the embassy for choosing the B&FT as its preferred journal. “We also came to thank you for subscribing to our newspaper. We are the foremost newspaper when it comes to business in the country, so we always want to get the international community closer”.
Additionally, he reaffirmed the newspaper’s commitment to reporting on the embassy’s activities as well as those of Swiss firms operating in the country.
“Rest assured that your activities in Ghana will continue to be well-represented in the B&FT. We are ever-ready to provide B2B services to Swiss enterprises operating in the country that want to penetrate the market,” he said.
Furthermore, the CEO hinted that the B&FT intends to broaden its coverage beyond Ghana to increase readership in the upcoming year.
“Our strategic plans for next year include churning out business news from Africa and beyond. We are going global in 2025,” he noted.
The Swiss Ambassador, for her part, lauded the B&FT for its fair and balanced reporting.
“I observed that you always try to be neutral. I also noticed that you do proper research and present the facts in an untainted manner. At one point, I gave up reading some of the country’s newspapers because I felt they were very one-sided, unlike the B&FT.
“Whenever we have topics on cocoa or gold to discuss, I actually pull out articles from the B&FT and use them as reference,” she elaborated.
With over 60 Swiss enterprises operating in the country, Mrs. Giger pledged the embassy’s support for the upcoming B&FT Women in Business (WIB) Dialogue Series- second edition in March next year.
The WIB Dialogue Series, organised by the B&FT, is a quarterly strategic platform to discuss issues confronting women entrepreneurs and proffer solutions to addressing them.
“We will come on board to support your women empowerment initiative because Switzerland has over 60 businesses in Ghana, including female-owned ones.
“We are active in different value chains. For instance, in textiles and shear, we have a lot of female entrepreneurs and female workers, so the embassy’s support for any effort aimed at empowering women is a step in the right direction,” she said.
Furthermore, she was grateful to the news organisation for the visit and looked forward to a fruitful working relationship in the coming years.
