Total of $9.1b FDIs into Ghana generate 6,056 jobs in 2017 – Report
Ghana’s total foreign direct investments (FDIs) in 2017 generated 6,056 jobs across all sectors of the Ghanaian economy – this is contained in a detailed report on Ghana’s 2017 foreign direct investments emailed to ghanabusinessnews.com by the fDi Markets magazine, data service of the Financial Times.
Ghana received $9.1 billion in foreign direct investments representing eight per cent share of the total foreign direct investments received by Middle East and Africa. This makes Ghana the second highest recipient of FDI in Africa, behind Egypt which received 32 per cent in the year under review.
The oil and gas sector received the largest investment in 2017 – in line with the global trend, where the coal, oil and natural gas sectors received the highest capital investment of $ 79.6 billion
The biggest foreign investor into the Ghanaian economy in 2017 was Italy-based Eni, an international energy company. The energy company injected into the Ghanaian economy, $7.9 billion, comprising about 87 per cent of all foreign direct investments Ghana received in 2017.
Eni invested to commence production at a new integrated oil and gas development facility in the Tano Basin area of Ghana. It is located in the Offshore Cape Three Points Block (OCTP) and operates as a joint venture, which is 44.44 per cent owned by Eni, 35.56 per cent owned by Netherlands-based Vitol and 20 per cent owned by state-owned Ghana National Petroleum Corporation, the report says.
“The OCTP development represents an investment of $7.9 billion and is made up of the Sankofa Main, Sankofa East and Gye-Nyame fields. The fields have 770 million barrels of oil equivalent in place, consisting of 500 million barrels of oil and 270 million barrels of oil equivalent of non-associated gas, which will be used to serve the local market,” the report added.
In all, 3000 jobs were created from this investment – and that’s almost half of all the jobs created through foreign direct investments in 2017.
Despite the global economy picking up in 2017 and growing at 3.7 per cent, global foreign direct investments flow declined by 16 per cent to $1,520 billion, resulting in a 9.4 per cent drop in global job creation in 2017. The report attributes the drop in foreign direct investments to the fact that foreign investors did not expect world growth to be as strong as the 3.7 per cent achieved in 2017.
Overall, 29 projects in Ghana received the capital investment in 2017 with many of those projects being new projects.
By Bismark Elorm Addo
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