Ghana’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Ms Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, has highlighted the over 1.2 billion African market with a combined GDP of $3 trillion under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), and urged Singaporean businesses to take advantage of the AfCFTA Secretariat that will be established Ghana’s capital, Accra.

She observed that Singaporean businesses could use AfCFTA to increase their presence in Ghana and spread to other parts of the African continent.

Speaking on Wednesday, 6 November 2019 in Accra at a dinner hosted in honour of the visiting Senior Minister and Coordinating Minister of Policies of Singapore, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Ms Botchwey expressed gratitude to the government of Singapore for its continuous support toward the socio-economic development of Ghana.

Ties between the two countries span three decades.

"May I seize the opportunity to place on record the gratitude of the government and people of Ghana to the government of Singapore for its support of the socio-economic development of Ghana, particularly through the award of educational scholarships to Ghanaian students,” she noted.

She told the visiting Minister that Singaporean companies have increasingly shown interest in Ghana, with some of them exploring business opportunities across various sectors, including oil and gas, agri-business and the hospitality industry.

These sectors, she said, continue to contribute to the development of Ghana's human resource base in a wide-range of disciplines, including tax and customs administration, environmental protection, information technology and disaster and emergency management in the aviation sector.

She described Mr Shanmugaratnam's visit as one of the high-profile visits within the framework of Ghana-Singapore bilateral relations.

His visit is the highest since the former Senior of State for Foreign Affairs, Zainul Abiding Rasheed, visited Ghana in 2008.

Ms Botchwey expressed delight about the renewal of Ghana-Singapore bilateral relations which she said was defined by the common values of democracy, constitutional governance, rule of law, freedom of expression and of the press, respect for human rights, promotion of the liberal market economy and international peace and security.

Present at the dinner reception were Ghana’s Vice-President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia; Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, some Ministers of State as well as Singaporean investors and diplomats.