The Royal Netherlands has so far invested about 350 million dollars in Ghana for the past 10 years through its ORET Grant Facility.

The major areas that benefited from the facility were urban water supply, road rehabilitation, port development and public or mass transport systems.

Other areas were the health and education sectors for diagnostic equipment, physiotherapy services and vocational training centres.

Mr Arie van der Wiel, Netherlands Ambassador in Ghana who announced this at Tema on Friday said the ORET facility was in addition to their regular bilateral co-operation programme with Ghana.

Mr Wiel was speaking at the sod-cutting ceremony by President John Agyekum Kufuor for work to begin on the first phase of the planned transformation of the Tema Port into a modern container port.

The work involves extension of quay two to re-develop it into a container terminal with the installation of container cranes with allowable wharf space for break-bulk cargo operation.

The project is estimated at about 60 million dollars and financed by the Netherlands government under its ORET Grant Facility and other private financial institutions.

It includes extension of the quay by about 200 metres to provide a total berth length of 570 metres with 11.5 metres draft at the south-end and 240 metres berth length with 11.5 metres draft at the north-end.

Mr Wiel said Ghana is the second recipient of facilities worldwide under the programme through which grants combined with commercial loans were made available to buy capital goods and engineering services in the Netherlands.

He said other projects undertaken by the Netherlands at the Tema Port included the dredging of deep berths and entrance of the port by a Netherlands firm Bos-Kalis.

Others were container trailers, tugboats and pilot boats supplied with the assistance of the Netherlands government bilateral support.

The Netherlands Ambassador said through improving its infrastructure, Ghana would be able to play a key role in the regional integration process in the West Africa Sub-Region.