From Benjamin Mensah, GNA Special Correspondent, Yamoussoukro, Cote d'Ivoire

Yamoussoukro, April 8, GNA - President John Evans Atta Mills on Tuesday evening stood in for Ghanaian residents in La Cote d'Ivoire and delivered a message of appreciation to Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo for annulling the Residence Permit requirement, which had since made working and movement in the country freer. The annulment of the Residence Permit would facilitate their stay and work in Cote d'Ivoire, making the two countries forge closer links and live as brothers with a common destiny and each other's keeper. The President conveyed the message to the Ivorian President at a dinner gala organised by President Gbagbo to honour President Mills in the Ivorian capital, Yamoussoukro, on the first day of a two-day tour of La Cote d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Togo.

The tour was mainly to thank the Presidents of those countries for attending his January 7 inauguration and to forge stronger ties with them.

Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire are both agricultural countries with cocoa as main export crop and great football nations in Africa. Cote d'Ivoire is the world's largest producer of cocoa while Ghana is the second largest producer with the two countries producing between them 60 per centre of the world's crop. President Mills earlier in the day received a hero's welcome, with full military honours when he arrived on the first leg of the three-nation tour.

He later held a closed-door meeting with the Ivorian leader that focused on strengthening of the bonds between the two countries. President Mills also interacted with the Ghanaian community. The President said the warm reception underscored the brotherly relations between the two countries and commended President Gbagbo and Prime Minister Guillaume Soro for their efforts to push the Ivorian peace process forward. President Mills urged the two nations to take advantage of the things that united them, adding that the meeting also afforded them the opportunity to look at their economic and cultural ties. Ghana, he said, was pursuing a people-centred approach to development, similar to that of La Cote d'Ivoire, which was also forging national unity.

President Gbagbo described the relations between the two countries as one between twin brothers with a common heritage. He cautioned that the discovery of oil and gas should not bring problems and conflicts between them. Ghana has discovered oil and gas in commercial quantities in the Tano Basin in the west of the country near Cote d'Ivoire.

President Gbagbo congratulated Ghana on successful elections last year, saying this had become a model for Africa and the rest of the world.

The two leaders later exchanged gifts and the Ivorian President decorated President Mills with the Grande Croix de l'Ordre National (National Order of the Grand Cross)