The President, John Evans Atta Mills, has said that the government is on course with measures to attract and retain foreign direct investments (FDls) in the country to accelerate economic growth. Over the last couple of years, he said the government's conscious efforts in the management of the economy had brought about macroeconomic stability to reduce uncertainties and distortions, while the rule of law to protect all and sundry was also being jealously guarded to grow people's confidence in the system. Addressing a group of foreign and local investors in a speech read on his behalf at the opening of a seminar christened; "Invest In Ghana - 2010," he said the government was ensuring that there was efficient infrastructure, financial and business support services; adequate education level and labour force, a strong competition in domestic markets and an open economy. The two-day seminar, which is under the auspices of the Ghana Investment Promotion Council (GIPC) in collaboration with the Swiss Agency for Trade and Investment (OSEC), took off as a prelude to the Ghana Club 100 awards which was held last night at the banquet hall of the State House in Accra to recognise the top 100 companies in the country. The seminar, which had the theme; "Enhancing partnerships between Domestic and Foreign Investors for sustained economic development," is being attended by more than 500 participants from Europe, Asia and the Americas and it is expected to expose the country's investment potentials which have been catalogued into projects to make for easy identification. President Atta Mills said "in line with the new global trend of making business the centrepiece of economic growth, the government continues to pursue measures aimed at improving the legal and regulatory framework for doing business, strengthening of the financial sector, facilitating access to land, streamlining business registration and licensing systems, reforming customs administration and taxation, as well as infrastructure development". The President used the occasion to tout the performance of GIPC for efforts aimed at attracting FDIs into the country and said, "With regard to attracting FDIs, Ghana in 2009 recorded an amount of US$551.30 million in the wake of the world financial economic crisis". He said it was worth noting that during the first half of the year, the country had registered projects with FDI component of US$760.68 million adding that; It is re-assuring to note that the positive gains of the government's economic policies have reflected in increase in investment flows to the country this year. The President recognised the need for the development and building of local capacity of the private sector to partner foreign investors for the sustainability of our development programmes. "As a build-up to this and in our desire to promote domestic entrepreneurial initiative, we have called for and profiled 110 projects which have been catalogued and advertised worldwide", he said. The Chief Executive Officer of the GIPC, Mr George Aboagye, said the focus of the seminar was to strengthen linkages among domestic and potential foreign investors and already existing foreign investors in the country. He assured the investors of the council's fullest co-operation to ensure the success of the seminar, conscious of the benefits to the country. The Counsellor of the Embassy of Switzerland, Mr Martin Saladin, said FDI was one of the key ways to generate economic growth and create wealth and employment. "The global competition for FDI has become very intense; traditionally, most countries have waited for investors to come to their country; but now apart from investment-seeking countries making their investment President John Evans Atta Mills climate attractive, they are also marketing and promoting their countries aggressively to attract more investors", he said. Mr Saladin said the Swiss Government financed initiative was to enhance the capacity of the GIPC to induce concrete FDIs into the country through the organisation of matchmaking events in Switzerland and Ghana. Source: Daily Graphic