The eighth annual African World Expo and Conference Two Trade Mission, scheduled to take place in Kumasi from August 7-15 has been launched.

The event, being organised by the Ashanti Regional Co-ordinating Council in collaboration with Multipurpose Company, is expected to create a platform for the development of business ties between local companies, organisations, individualsand US businessmen.

Over 100 businessmen from the US are expected to participate in the Expo, which will be held for the first time in Africa and has been dubbed “America and Ghana Trade Mission.”

Ashanti Regional Minister, Sampson Kwaku Boafo (MP) said the mission’s visit to Kumasi would be a fact-finding and investment exploration one that would seek to identify the investment potentials in Ashanti and Ghana and the possibility of finding joint ventures and trade partners.

The conference targeted participants are individuals and companies, small, medium and large-scale businesses involved in trade, exports, clothing and textiles, pharmaceuticals and medical supplies, finance, banking, transport, building and construction, civil engineering and architecture.

Historically, Ashanti had been one of the significant backbones of Ghana’s economy, providing cocoa, timber and gold, which had sustained both the regional and national economies over the years but which are now in a precarious state. “It is a hard fact that most of the timber factories are producing under capacity,” Mr. Boafo said.

The Jute and Biscuit factories in the region have equally folded up while other potentially viable factories are laying off workers. The tourism sector is also a far cry from its potential.” According to Mr. Boafo it is against these downward development trends of regional economy that special initiatives should be put in place to salvage it and therefore called on domestic entrepreneurs and industrialists to position themselves very well to reap the full benefits of the conference.

The Kumasi Metropolitan Chief Executive, Maxwell Kofi Jumah, said the businessmen are coming with America style service oriented approach and therefore challenged businessmen in Kumasi and industrialists to take advantage and tap their experiences.

The objective is to provide opportunities for both sides Africans and for that matter Ghanaian businessmen and women and their American counterparts to exchange ideas on how to further develop their businesses to the mutual benefit of their two countries.

The KMA boss also called for investment in the Cultural Centre, which is celebrating its golden jubilee, pointing out that it would prove worthwhile since it was a foreign exchange earner for the tourism sector