The US Ambassador to Ghana, Robert Jackson, has cited the high cost of air travel and the undue delays in visa acquisition as two major challenges to investments to Ghana.<\/p>\n
According to him, the development has compelled most investors to divert attention to other countries within the sub-region as businesses are more endeared to ease of doing business.<\/p>\n
The US Ambassador made the observation when he paid a courtesy call at the Ministry of Business Development on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmong the things that hold the US investors back include the travel cost; Ghana\u2019s aviation is very expensive. Secondly we see that the speed with which the Ghanaian embassy in the United States processes visas is about three weeks. We have our own visa issues but we process our visas within 48 hours. I do not know what process occurs in the Ghana\u2019s Embassies across overseas but I know that the offices in Europe are far faster than the Embassies in Washington,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026If you want more visitors and businesses to come to Ghana, then making it easier to get visas will help with that,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Ghana\u2019s trade volume with the US is estimated at 1.2 billion dollars.<\/p>\n
The US contributed to about 900 million dollars with Ghana accounting for the remaining 300 million dollars.<\/p>\n
But the high cost of doing business has constrained businesses with plans to invest in Ghana.<\/p>\n
The development also contributed to Ghana\u2019s ranking in the latest ease of doing business by the World Bank.<\/p>\n
The country\u2019s 108th<\/sup> position has been considered uncompetitive hence the need to revise procedures to ease the registration procedure for businesses.<\/p>\n Ambassador Jackson also believes interventions to reduce the high cost of doing business should improve Ghana\u2019s bilateral trade with the US.<\/p>\n In a related development, the sector Minister, Mohammed Ibrahim Awal has reiterated his outfit\u2019s resolve to reduce the bureaucracies in registering businesses in a bid to attract huge investors to Ghana.<\/p>\n The US Ambassador to Ghana, Robert Jackson, has cited the high cost of air travel and the undue delays in visa acquisition as two major challenges to investments to Ghana. According to him, the development has compelled most investors to divert attention to other countries within the sub-region as businesses are more endeared to ease […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[32,171,11],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n