The Ghana Investment Promotion Center (GIPC) on Thursday held a stakeholder’s forum in Bolgatanga to explain the implementation process of the center and to encourage Ghanaian businesses within the region to register with it and take advantage of the incentives provided.

The forum was also meant to give the GIPC a chance to identify for promotion and investment, opportunities in the region and to encourage project sponsors to productively engage the center in their project promotion and development.

Dr Richard Adjei, the principal officer at the research and business development division of GIPC, said investment opportunities abound in the Upper East Region, which could not be fully exploited by other agencies, hence the involvement of GIPC, and advised people with projects to make sure their proposals met the international standards of business.

He urged the Regional Coordinating Council and the Municipal and District Assemblies to get involved in the activities of the GIPC and convince the business sector in the region to register and take advantage of the packages that were designed to promote their businesses.

“The GIPC has embarked on an outreach Programme to the regions to sensitize business people on the activities of the center, identify investment opportunities and promote them and also encourage local investors to register with the center”, Dr Adjei said.

Mr James Z Tiigah, the Upper East Regional Minister, noted that the region was endowed with potentials that could propel it out of the self-imposed poverty situation, and pointed out crop production and processing, animal rearing and vegetable production among other activities as the region’s enormous potentials.

Mr Tiigah said the region needs to tap into those resources, add value to them, consume some locally and also export the rest, saying that, the only way to achieve such development in the region was through investment.

He urged all, who were determined to invest in the region to liaise with the GIPC and make good use of the business packages it offers to promote their quest.

Participants at the forum included business people and representatives of district assemblies, who asked questions of concern and attributed their low registration to the fact that the GIPC did not have an office in the region.

They then asked the GIPC to open an office in the region to enable them to register their businesses instead of travelling to Tamale or Accra to do so.