Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister of Mexico, Ambassador Julian Ventura has paid a visit to the Speaker of Parliament Professor Aaron Mike Oquaye at his office Thursday, 22nd August, 2019 as part of a 2-day visit to Ghana.
Ambassador Ventura stated that he is hopeful of a collaboration between Ghana and Mexico which will increase the trade investment, particularly with Ghana being the secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
“Mexico, being a global free trade champion with 50 FTAs around the world opens up new avenues for collaboration as to our respective experiences in our regions, and with Ghana as a platform for Mexico to increase the Trade and investment footprint in the African continent as a whole.”
Professor Mike Oquaye on his part, invited Mexico to take the opportunity and partake in government's flagship 'One District One Factory', (1D1F) as this will serve as a means to improve bilateral trade among the countries.
“With regards to your agric committee in parliament, we will relate specially to them because we’re a major contributor to what has come to be known in the country as 1d1f. It is a way of developing small scale industries in the hinterlands, it is a way of improving our agriculture generally.”
As part of his two-day official visit to Ghana, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Mexico mentioned having had discussions with the chancellor of the University of Ghana Legon as well as a meeting with Ghana’s ministry of Foreign Affairs and Integration.
“I’ve met with the agricultural ministry to develop various programs that are on the ground that can help food security and nutrition in Ghana and women’s empowerment for small producers. We have investments in the Volta region that are doing quite well in the agricultural sector, we are exploring the opportunities in the automotives industry here in Ghana…we talked also to the chancellor of the university of Ghana about our growing academic exchanges incorporations. They have agreements that they have fostered with four top Mexican universities, we have scholarship programs, teacher exchanges … which gives another dimension to our relationship that is growing at a very fast rate”