Efforts by the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) in attracting investment into the country has yielded little results in the northern regions of Ghana.
According to a report by the GIPC, even though the country attracted a Foreign Direct Investment(FDI)of about US$4.3 billion in the first 9 months of the year out of the targeted Ghc5 billion, FDIs in the three regions of the north remained significantly low as compared to the Southern part of the country.
The GIPC report indicated that the country recorded a total worth of US$2.9 billion FDI projects only in the first quarter of the year – 2017.
Out of those projects, the Ashanti, Volta and Brong Ahafo Regions received one project each; Northern and Western regions – two; Eastern region – three; the Greater Accra region received a total of 39 FDI projects and; Upper East, Upper West and the Central regions respectively received none.
The trend continued during the second quarter even with the FDI hitting US$3.1 billion with only four regions (Ashanti, Eastern, Greater Accra and Western regions) attracting the FDIs.
To reverse this negative trend in the northern regions of the country – particularly, the Upper East and the Upper West regions with their huge natural resource deposit: GIPC recently signed a Memoranda of Understating with the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) to attract investors into the region.