Accra, Aug. 20, GNA - A Ghana-Nigeria Business Summit, a private sector driven initiative, aimed at facilitating bilateral trade relations between the two countries would be held in Accra in October to accelerate economic integration and development.

The three-day summit scheduled for October 6 to 8 would facilitate the signing of a trade agreement, the first of its kind, to help break obstacles that affect businesses in Ghana and Nigeria. Mr George Kumi, Ghana's High Commissioner to Nigeria, said at a press briefing in Accra on Wednesday that stronger trade and investment cooperation had the potential to turn around the economies of the two countries.

He said Ghana and Nigeria's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) alone contributed to over 60 per cent of the GDP in the sub-region and therefore partnership to explore investment and trade opportunities would yield tremendous gains.

He indicated that whilst Nigerian investors had injected over 600 million dollars into the Ghanaian economy within the last seven years, Ghanaian investment in Nigeria was very small. Mr Kumi attributed the low Ghanaian investment in Nigeria to mistrust and other perceptions discrediting business transactions with Nigerians, saying that a platform to remove the suspicions and barriers was therefore crucial.

The intended cooperation, he said, was not an attempt to suppress the economies of other countries in the sub-region considering that Ghana and Nigeria had an advantage in terms of population and economic stability. He said this would rather help to achieve a common objective which would encourage other countries to also collaborate and promote economic integration and development. M.O Obanikoro, Nigeria High Commissioner in Ghana, said the time had come for Africans to come together to do away with internal obstacles that were affecting the progress of the continent. He stated that if Ghana and Nigeria were successful in this collaboration, the benefits would spread to all blacks including Africans in the Diaspora.

He said other integration efforts within the sub-region to promote trade and economic integration had not been successful, and expressed the hope that both countries would do away with sentiments and help to make the partnership an envy of the world. "This is a vision capable of bringing the opportunity that Africans are looking for elsewhere in helping to reduce poverty," Mr Obanikoro added.

Mr. Francis Kusi, Director of Investment and Finance at the Ministry of Trade, Industry, Private Sector Development and President's Special Initiative, expressed government's support to the initiative and expressed the hope that the cooperation would provide opportunities to the youth to prevent them from going abroad for greener pastures. Otunba Michael Ajayi, Chief Executive of Vintage Visions Ghana Limited, initiators of the summit, said it would have presentations by key government policy makers and experts on productive investment opportunities, ECOWAS protocols and international regulations on trade and combating financial and economic crimes across the borders. He hinted that a Ghana-Nigeria Chamber of Commerce and Industry would also be set up to drive the agenda forward.