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President John Dramani Mahama has described Ghana as the ‘’jewel’’ of Africa where investors must turn their attention to, if they want to engage in productive businesses.

He said any investor who is willing to do business in Africa must first of all start from Ghana before exploring for other opportunities elsewhere.

Prez Mahama said, Ghana is gradually moving from the production of raw materials to the stage of processing them into finished goods to boost the growth agenda of the country.

He however added that though it’s the country’s target to process about 50 percent of its cocoa into various varieties domestically, it has since been able to achieve only 32%.

He thus urged investors to pool their resources into the cocoa sector in processing the raw beans into finished products to achieve its targets.

President Mahama made these remarks at the “Ghana-Italy Business Forum” held in Milan-Italy, as part of activities to mark Ghana’s Day of the “World Expo 2015”.

“…I wish investors move into the mining, Real Estate and horticulture,… and the oil and gas sectors to expand frontiers,” he entreated.

Touching on Energy and Power, President Mahama acknowledged that Ghana is facing a deficit in power supply, but pointed out that so are a host of other countries in the sub-region. Nonetheless, he said, government has not thrown up its hands in despair, but is considering other alternatives by engaging some Independent Power Producers (IPPs) for the use solar, wind energy and coal in boosting the supply of power to woo more investors.

The long years of cooperation between Ghana and Italy dates back from the days of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the country’s first president.
With over 118 Italian companies working in Ghana, Italy is ranked the 10th in terms of foreign projects registered in Ghana as at March this year. The European nation has made over $8billion investment in Ghana.

According to official figures, Ghana's export to Italy (mostly petroleum products), reached almost GH¢2.2billion in 2012, while imports from Italy amounted to GH¢500million