Ghanaians in the diaspora have been charged to take advantage of investment opportunities in government’s flagship programmes such as the One District One Factory (1D1F) and Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ).
Call for Ghanaians in the diaspora to invest in the country follows government’s realization of the enormous talent, technology and wealth the Ghanaian diaspora can contribute to the economic development of the country, particularly in this era of the Covid pandemic.
Ghana has a sizeable diaspora population, believed to be around 3 million people spread across the globe.
According to a recent World Bank estimate, remittances from Ghanaians in the diaspora alone totaled 3.6 billion dollars in 2020, reflective of the impact the diaspora has on the country’s economy.
Making the call on Ghanaian diasporans and African diasporans in general, Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC), Yofi Grant, stated that for a country like Ghana to recover from the impact of the global health pandemic, the need for diaspora investments is critical.
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“Investors from the diaspora can take advantage of government programmes such as 1D1F, PFJ, special economic zones, and industrial parks, among others to expand their investment options,” stated Mr Grant at the Diaspora Investment Summit organized by the GIPC on the theme The New Normal: Leveraging Diaspora Investment to Build Back Better.
Aside calling on diasporans to invest in government flagship programmes to ensure its success, government is also looking to raise some Ghs 70 billion from the private sector which include Ghanaian and other African diasporans in the Ghs 100 billion Ghana CARES Obaatanpa programme to revitalize and transform the Ghanaian economy and ultimately making the country an industrial hub in the West African sub region.
Programmes such as the 1D1F, PFJ and other initiatives introduced by government in 2017 has created hundreds of thousands of jobs for the citizenry.
For instance, the 1D1F as of 2020 had created over 57,000 jobs. Some 18,811 direct jobs and 38,532 indirect jobs had been created through 162 1D1F companies which were fully in operation.
Additionally, some 120,520 direct jobs and 247,383 indirect jobs are projected to be created from the 1D1F initiative.
At the moment, 232 out of 260 1D1F factories are currently at various stages of completion with some operating at full capacity.
