Why Ghana will become the 'mining hub' for West Africa
Ghana’s economic landscape has been shaped by the mining sector and, while mineral extraction has contributed to the country’s development path, the extent to which the country has tapped its mineral potential has remained limited, says a report in Mining Weekly.
As interest in the country’s mineral sector grows, it is expected that the potential for more mineral reserves will be unearthed, African Minerals Development Centre coordinator Kojo Busia said last week.
Addressing delegates at the Cross-Border Mining ServicesAfrica Indaba, in Johannesburg, he said Ghana was a mature mineral producing country that was well poised to take advantage of regional markets for upstream products in the mineral value chain.
“Ghana has a market which is growing. The annual industry procurement spending upstream of the value chain averages $1.2-billion out of a total of $2.6-billion in West Africa,” he said, adding that Ghana has relatively better infrastructure than its neighbours in West Africa.
He noted that trade policies were business friendly and that all international bilateral and multilateral protocols on trade and foreign investments were protected.
“With this advantage, companies establishing manufacturing and production units in Ghana will achieve market stabilisation fairly quickly through consistent orders and use Ghana as a regional hub to grow organically into the larger West Africa mining procurement market,” he said.
Busia stated that, to support Ghana’s broader industrial agenda and leverage the mineral sector’s strength to depart from the traditional raw material exports to creating a more value-added mineral sector, government has set up a comprehensive National Suppliers Development Programe (NSDP).