The Upper West Regional Minister, Bede Ziedeng has cautioned the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) and investors in the country not to reduce investment workshops to talk shops.

Instead, the minister implored such workshops should have substantial impact on both potential and existing businesses.

The minister made this call when he addressed a Regional sensitization workshop and call for projects by the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre in the Wa Municipality in the Upper West Region.

“All participants are carefully selected because they are relevant stakeholders and collaborators as far as investments are concerned and I have no doubt that this workshop will come out with practical ways to search and acquire the necessary funding for business opportunities”, he revealed.

According to the regional minister, an improvement should be made to increase the frequency in holding such forums for purposes of investments.

Mr. Ziedeng stated that “when it is done more than once a year, say on a quarterly or half yearly basis, it will be easy for actions and for follow ups to be carried out”.

“But the current situation whereby the workshop is organized annually makes people go into slumber and forget of actions to be pursued”, he explained.

In his presentation the Director for Monitoring and Tracking at the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre, Mr. Ashong Lartey said the northern sector of the country could do more than it is currently doing in terms of projects undertaken so far.

He revealed that with over 80 projects undertaken in the previous year, the Upper West region had only 2 together with the Northern region while the Upper East region recorded zero.

He said some challenges which could hinder successful investments included lack of negotiating skills, inaccurate information from project sponsors as well as limited knowledge in undertaking specific projects.

He further advised business owners to fully register their firms and make good use of professionals in their business dealings in order to get the best of their investments.

Participants included representatives from government agencies, district assembly executives, private business owners as well as commercial farmers and investors in the region.

The Upper East region will be the next to host the GIPC Sensitization and Call for Projects Workshop.