Yofi Grant Appointed External Independent Member of the Board of OACPS’ Endowment & Trust Fund

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre ,(GIPC), Reginald Yofi Grant, has been appointed as an External Independent Member, for a 2-year mandate, on the Board of Directors of the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States, OACPS’ Endowment and Trust Fund (ETF), to represent the West Africa Region.

The OACPS’ Endowment and Trust Fund (ETF) was formally launched at the 9th Summit of the Heads of State and Government of the OACPS, in Nairobi, Kenya, in December 2019, to assist the OACPS to become financially independent by diversifying its funding sources beyond the assessed contributions of Member States.

A press statement issued by the Embassy of the Ghana, states that, “the appointment was confirmed at the 929th meeting of the Committee of Ambassadors (COA) of the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) held in Brussels on 23rd June, 2020.”

Meanwhile, Ghana has pledged an amount of One Hundred Thousand Euros (100,000) as her contribution to the fund in response to an appeal launched by the OACPS.

Yofi Grant is a Ghanaian investment banker with over 30 years of extensive work experience in banking and finance. He has served in various capacities in corporate finance and advisory, corporate banking and marketing. He has broad knowledge and great exposure in the African financial markets and has cultivated strong relationships with international private equity funds, portfolio and investment managers and brokerage funds.

The Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States, OACPS

The Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS), formerly the ACP Group is one of the most enduring institutions in the landscape of international economic diplomacy.

“Today, it is the largest trans-national and tri-continental organisation of developing countries on the international scene. Its seventy-nine (79) member countries from Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific are bound together by a shared sense of history and a common vision of the future, with all of them, save for Cuba, signatories to the Cotonou Partnership Agreement (CPA), also known as the “ACP-EC Partnership Agreement” which connects them to the European Union ,” the statement said.

There are forty-eight (48) countries from Sub-Saharan Africa, sixteen (16) from the Caribbean and fifteen (15) from the Pacific.

Ghana has been an active member of the OACPS since its formation in 1975, with the coming into force of the Georgetown Agreement, signed in Georgetown, The Cooperative Republic of Guyana. Furthermore, the longstanding development cooperation between Ghana and the European Union (EU) has been framed around successive Partnership Agreements (PA) signed by the OACPS and the EU, the first being the Lome Convention of 1975.

The ETF is also one of the key elements of the Future Perspectives of the OACPS, which is geared towards re-inventing and repositioning the OACPS as a ‘fit for purpose’ Organisation and an influential global player on the international scene post-2020, capable of securing the interests of its Member States.

Source: Embassy of Ghana- Brussels 

#CitiBusinessFestival: Africa Must Reduce Over-Reliance on Imports Post-Covid- Yofi Grant

As the world gradually recovers from the economic impact of the novel Coronavirus outbreak, African countries are being urged to make the most of the opportunities presented by the pandemic to diversify and industrialize, and reduce over-reliance on imports.

According to the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre, GIPC, Yofi Grant, a turnaround from import dependence is essential for the continent to take full advantage of opportunities presented by the pandemic.

Commodity exports on average, accounted for 80% of total merchandise exports from Africa.

Mr. Yofi Grant, who was speaking on the Citi Business Festival Virtual Forum on the topic; ‘Understanding the AfCFTA and the opportunities for your business’, said that, “When you look at Africa, trade is such that we import a lot more than we export. We import finished goods and we export raw materials. I think that needs to be reverted. We should export processed goods and import the raw materials we need to process those goods such that we will be operating at the high end of the value chain.”

He also stated the time is ripe for businesses to look ‘inwards’ and re-strategize as the crisis provides an opportunity for them to take more concrete steps towards realizing the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA)

“This is an indication of what I believe the future is because we now recognize that perhaps we should also look inwards. As we can’t print money, and government’s resources are shrinking and our economies are also shrinking, we need to look inwards and see how we can curtail some of this from our own resources,” he said.

“If you look through history, there have been pandemics especially the Spanish Flu which killed about fifty million people. But in all those cycles, the world changed to adapt. But for Africa, I think this still remains a unique opportunity to re-caliberate because prior to this if you look at the ten fastest growing economies, six were from Africa,” he added.

The AfCFTA provides an opportunity for Africa to create the world’s largest free trade area, with the potential to unite 1.3 billion people, in a $2.5 trillion dollar economic bloc and usher in a new era of development.

The 2020 edition of the Citi Business Festival has a line-up of radio and TV discussions. It has featured virtual business fora that aired live on Citi TV.

Source: CitiNewsroom