The government is set to introduce a Business Regulatory Reform Bill to Parliament to address the numerous and, in some cases, duplicative regulations confronting businesses and make it easier to operate in Ghana, the Minister of Trade, Agribusiness and Industry, Mrs Elizabeth Ofosu-Adjare, said.
She said the Ministry was working around the clock to ensure the passage of the Bill, which she described as a key step towards creating a more predictable and business-friendly regulatory environment.
Mrs Ofosu-Adjare disclosed this in Accra on Friday at the launch of the 2025 Trade Report of the Ghana Investment Promotion Authority (GIPA).
According to the Minister, the new law would help reduce duplicated regulations, make compliance requirements and costs more predictable, and give businesses clearer information on the rules that apply to them.
“Once passed, every business regulation will be assessed for its cost to enterprises, opened to public-private consultation and catalogued in one place,” she said.
Mrs Ofosu-Adjare said the 2025 GIPA report provided a useful basis for assessing Ghana’s progress in attracting investment, indicating that the country attracted about $2.6 billion in foreign direct investment through more than 250 new projects and assisted companies during the year.
She, however, believed the figure did not fully capture the scale of investment that came into the country, particularly the value of machinery and reinvestments by companies already operating in Ghana.
“I think this number is way, way, way below what we really did,” she said, noting that GIPA had been modest in its assessment and had not included the value of machinery brought into the country.
She cited a $250 million investment which, she said, Ghana had successfully secured from a company that was initially considering another country.
“We were able to convince them to bring the $250 million investment to Ghana, and we are supposed to commission it next year,” she said.
The Minister also mentioned an investment of about $20 million by Zonda, among other projects, as evidence of growing investor confidence and urged GIPA to ensure that such investments were properly captured in future reports.
Mrs Ofosu-Adjare said reinvestment by existing companies was particularly important because it demonstrated confidence in Ghana’s economic prospects.
She said Ghana’s domestic market, coupled with the opportunities presented by the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), made the country an attractive platform for investors seeking to serve the wider African market.
The Minister said the government remained committed to improving the ease of doing business, strengthening coordination among public institutions and reducing avoidable delays in approvals and administrative processes.
“Investment begins to acquire its economic meaning when it reaches the factory floor, enters the processing facility, creates opportunities for Ghanaian businesses and puts people to productive work,” she said.
Mrs Ofosu-Adjare added that the GIPA report identified nearly $12 billion in announced and pipeline investments, stressing that the priority now was to convert the interest into operational businesses that produced, created jobs and generated value in Ghana.
The Minister called for stronger collaboration between government institutions and the private sector to ensure that Ghana’s investment opportunities translated into tangible economic transformation.
BY KINGSLEY ASARE
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