Accra, Dec. 12, GNA - Scancom Ghana Limited, providers of Areeba telecom services retained its number one position on the Ghana Club 100 listing for 2005 but Rural Banks stole the show at the award's ceremony as guests could not cease applauding amidst open expressions of surprises for their impressive performances.

Twenty out of about 120 rural banks featured in the first high rated performance companies for the year 2005 with the Atwima Kwawuman Rural Bank wrestling with the giant companies to place the 10th on the list. Of the 12 rural banks that featured in the 2004 listings none came among the first 10.

This year's Ghana Club 100 Awards under the theme: "Leveraging Skills and Resources of Non-Resident Ghanaians for National Development=94 was the eight in the series seeing Scancom Ghana Limited emerging for the fourth time, the best of the best. Those in the second to the ninth positions were: Unique Trust Financial Services; Guinness Ghana Brewery Limited; Nestle Ghana Limited; Ghana Community Network Services Limited (GC-Net); Toyota Ghana Limited; Dizengoff Ghana Limited; I-2000 Limited and Kasapreko Company Limited.

The bottom three, the 100th, 99th and 98th, positions went to Ghana Aluminum Products Company Limited; Kama Health Services and First African Financial Services Limited.

Launching the award, Vice President Aliu Mahama expressed satisfaction that the event had become an annual affair, which captains of industries that could be described as cream de le cream were recognized and awarded for their untiring efforts in keeping the name of Ghana on the global business map.

"The concept of this award project, its refinement over time and the professionalism exhibited in its annual executions is worthy of praise," he said and commended the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) and its collaborators for the initiative.

Vice President Mahama said the Government would continue to support such efforts with the implementation of appropriate reforms and strategies to improve the country's general business environment. "In this connection, our focus on policy solutions to Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) will continue to be on measures aimed at reducing obstacles, increasing predictability, promoting consistency, fostering competition and marketing the variety of opportunities in the country. "The dynamics of FDI attraction are changing and it has become necessary to adopt new policy responses to elicit increasing levels of FDIs, especially in developing countries such as ours," he said. A cursory look at FDIs, the Vice President said showed that investments by Diasporans were becoming increasingly important for developing countries.

"In Ghana today it is not difficult for any discerning observer to point to the proliferation of investments by non-resident Ghanaians around the country. This is happening as one of the natural imperatives of globalisation," he said.

Vice President Mahama recalled the first Ghana Homecoming Summit in July 2001, which was to explore the investment potentials of Non-Resident Ghanaians and that the benefits have started flowing in with current statistics showing that the level of investments had increased.

"It is now time for us to consolidate this achievement for it to have the necessary impact on the economy," he said.

Vice President Mahama said with the opportunities now available for Ghanaians to hold dual citizenship and the passage of the Representation of the People's Amendment Act (ROPAA), the contributions of non-resident Ghanaians were being better recognized and valued.

"It, therefore, behoves them to show more confidence in themselves by taking on bigger stakes in the socio-economic life of our dear country and to propel its growth to higher levels," he said. More CKA/BDB