The Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) is initiating legal reforms to guarantee incentives for investors with interests in helping Ghana achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The incentives, tariff and non-tariff, will speed up the process of achieving the SDGs, which are linked to the country’s budget.

“Ghana strongly endorses the SDGs and we are the first country in the world to benchmark our SDGs in the budget,” Mr Yofi Grant, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GIPC, said at the Ghana – South Africa Business Forum in Accra on Sunday.

He said the reform, when endorsed, would also strengthen partnership between GIPC and local investors where all Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) would have Ghanaian investors implanted in the supply and value chains.

“I hope this would bring stronger partnerships, stronger trade interventions, and we would grow together,” he said.

Both Ghana and South Africa, he said, had enormous opportunity that could be well harnessed comparatively for the economic growth of the continent through industrialization.

He said Ghana, due to its proximity to major markets and destination, provided linkages to other parts of the continent, especially with the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) designed to boost intra continental trade.

“It is imperative that we change the narration and we change the structure of our economies to industrialize and in doing so, I think Ghana finds the partnership with South Africa very instructive and inspirational,” he said.

The CEO of the National Empowerment Fund of South Africa, Ms. Philisiwe Buthelezi, said successful deliberations between both countries should among other things see to the crafting of a road map to consolidate economic gains, improve bilateral investments, articulate strategies on cooperation and strengthening of Ghana-South Africa partnership with the rest of the continent.

She highlighted the need for both countries to diversify inter-trade, urging Ghana to shift away from exporting primary products while South African considered other areas of trade aside exporting semi to manufactured products.

“And one way of doing so is increasing the levels of investment between the two countries,” she said.

Ms Buthelezi also called for the adoption of homegrown initiatives that would give priority and create more opportunities for local companies, adding that, “let’s put our African companies at the forefront of the growth that we are looking at.”