Pretoria - South Africa and Ghana have agreed to strengthen bilateral relations and address non-tariff barriers and bottlenecks in order to increase trade and investment between the two countries.
This emerged from the bilateral meeting that was held in Ghana by the Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry Mzwandile Masina and his Ghanaian counterpart Kweku Haga.
Deputy Minister Masina arrived in Ghana on Monday where he is leading a business delegation on an Outward Selling and Investment Mission (OSIM).
The Deputy Minister said the review and implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Economic and Technical Cooperation will give both countries an opportunity to reflect and align the MoU to the countries’ industrial development policies so as to expedite the beneficiation of raw materials.
“Both sides agreed that task teams consisting of technical officials needs to be established to oversee the implementation and review some of key aspect that have been identified,” said Deputy Minister Masina on Wednesday.
He emphasised a need for the reviewed MoU to be pro-business and attract inwards and outwards investments.
Deputy Minister Kweku welcomed the discussion and expressed eagerness on behalf of the government of Ghana to work towards strengthening trade and investment relations with South Africa.
Deputy Minister Masina also held bilateral meetings with the Minister of Foreign Affairs Hanna Tetteh and Minister of Transport Dzifa Attivor. According to the dti, the meetings focused on the need to continue to advance regional integration and intra-Africa trade.
Deputy Minister Masina will on Thursday proceed with the business delegation on the second leg of the OSIM to Nigeria.
The objective of OSIM is to increase trade and investment, and deepen bilateral relations between South Africa and Ghana and Nigeria.-SAnews.gov.za
