In a keynote address at the second Ghana Cyber Group (GCG) Festival at the Hyatt Fair Lakes, Virginia, Ghana’s Acting Ambassador to the United States, Mr. Isaac Aggrey (pictured) said, the United States is of strategic economic importance to the Government of Ghana.

Apart from the ‘preponderance of Ghana’s skilled personnel based in the United States, the United States is Ghana’s third international trade partner and thanks to AGOA, there is the potential of increasing trade.’

This acknowledgement partly accounted for the establishment of the Ghana-U.S. Economic Council launched in March this year by the then Ambassador Alan Kyerematen now Trade, Industry and Special Presidential Initiatives Minister.

According to Mr. Aggrey, the Embassy will in October host an investment forum, which will bring business delegations, led by regional ministers from the Central, Greater Accra, Volta, Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions to the U.S. This will be a follow up to the one held in March, which brought regional ministers and business delegations from Asante, Brong Ahafo, Western and Eastern regions.

Mr. Aggrey commended the GCG for the interesting economic and health initiatives they have taken so far. He also advised that ‘We Africans are good at celebrating ideas and intensions. Implementing our ideas usually run into roadblocks. At the end of this festival, I will want to urge all of us to find out what became of our ideas.’

The Chief Executive of the Ghana Investment and Promotion Centre (GIPC) Mr. Kwasi Abeasi speaking on the business panel session said that in the past, the focus of the GIPC was on foreign investors but ‘we are now changing the strategy and focusing on local investors. Nobody will be interested in investing in a country where locals do not want to invest.’

The problems of business promotion in Africa, he however admitted, are many. The production base is weak and can only increase through investment, both local and foreign. The country is still short of skilled manpower and there is the urgent need ‘to build capacity and retain them.’

Mr. Abeasi assured the GCG that they would be respected more in Ghana than the United States and asked those ‘who want to resettle in Ghana to consult the GIPC for the necessary guidance.

Speaking on Social Capital Formation in the Diaspora and Economic Reconstruction in Ghana, Mr. Ivor Agyeman-Duah, Minister Counselor, Public Affairs Department at the Ghana Embassy said, the immediate post-independent era in the 1960s created great euphoria in the political and economic direction of the continent.

Africa, Mr. Agyeman-Duah explained, succeeded in highlighting the civilizations of its past to good effect in the first cordial alliance between politicians and academicians.

While this helped to give an African personality in the formation of political and economic bodies in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the harder battle of feeding Africans, giving them decent water, primary health care, education and general development by the leadership had failed due to many complex factors.

One of the things the GCG and the Diaspora could do, Mr. Agyeman-Duah said was to transform the social capital they have founded in the old boys and girls associations, the numerous ethnic associations and the financial and intellectual powers that these gives them to influence policy issues in Ghana.

‘Acquisition of skills without the willingness to share with others and for the use of social and economic goals but only as an elite tag is as good as bad ’he added.