Presidential Adviser on National Resilience and Emergency Preparedness, Hon. Ernest Brogya Genfi has called on strategic investors and business leaders to establish processing, refining and manufacturing facilities in Ghana as the country intensifies efforts to move away from exporting raw materials.
He said Ghana’s economic future depends on its ability to add value to its natural resources and develop industries capable of producing finished goods for domestic, regional and international markets.
Hon. Brogya Genfi described the longstanding practice of exporting raw commodities while importing finished products as a model that had deprived African economies of industrial development and employment opportunities.
Delivering a keynote address on behalf of the Chief of Staff, Hon. Julius Debrah, at the 5th Ghana CEO Vision and Awards Climax Gala, he noted that Ghana possessed significant deposits of strategic minerals, including lithium, manganese, graphite, bauxite and gold, which presented opportunities to develop local processing and manufacturing industries.
He stressed that Ghana was not seeking to remain merely an extraction point for the global green transition but wanted partnerships that would support processing, refining and industrial development within its borders.
He therefore invited investors and visionary CEOs to establish processing facilities, battery value-chain industries, advanced manufacturing enterprises and supporting industrial ecosystems in the country.
Hon. Brogya Genfi also highlighted opportunities in the pharmaceutical and health sectors, pointing to efforts to strengthen domestic pharmaceutical capacity, advance the National Vaccine Institute initiative and create the regulatory and investment frameworks needed to support local production.
He said Ghana’s ambition must extend beyond assembling products to innovating, manufacturing and competing in wider markets.
In his speech, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) was further identified
as an important opportunity for Ghanaian businesses to expand their reach, noting that the country’s position as host of the AfCFTA Secretariat offered strategic access to a continental market of more than 1.4 billion people.
