Finnish business delegation to explore joint ventures
The Finnish Fund for Industrial Co-operation (Finnfund) will provide financial support for Ghanaian businesses that go into joint venture partnerships with their counterparts from Finland.
The Investment Manager of the fund, Mr Juddi Ahonen, stated this when a delegation from Finland, led by the country’s Under-Secretary of State for External Economic Relations, Mr Matti Anttonen, visited the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources last Tuesday to explore avenues for co-operation between the two countries.
“We are looking at ventures that are commercially profitable and those that have a positive impact on development, local job creation successes, operate in an environmentally sustainable manner and have a positive balance sheet,” Mr Ahonen added.
Finnfund provides long-term risk capital for profitable investments in developing countries and currently operates in Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia and South Africa.
Ghana-Finland relations
The 25-member business delegation from Finland is in the country to deepen trade and investment ties in areas such as Information and Communications and Technology (ICT), energy, forestry, education, health, agriculture, as well as strengthen political ties.
The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Nii Osah Mills, in response, said there were a lot of areas where the two countries could work together for their mutual benefit.
He talked about Ghana’s determination to diversify its economy to reduce the external shocks it experienced whenever commodity prices on the world market tumbled.
Nii Osah said falling gold price on the world market was one challenge for the country, stressing that economic diversification was important for Ghana to reduce its dependence on commodities that had price fluctuations.
Forest sector/Finish technology
Nii Osah deplored the alarming rate at which the country’s forest was dwindling, noting that it was time to inculcate in the youth a culture that promoted an appreciation of the forest.
Unlike Ghana, forests are Finland’s primary natural resource. In spite of owning only 0.5 per cent of the world’s forest resources, Finland is the world’s eighth largest producer of paper and paperboard. It is also the fourth largest exporter of sawn softwood goods in the world, according to the Finnish Forest Association.
Finnish timber technology has transformed the forestry sector to the extent that Finland is the first country in the world where cars run on wood-based diesel.
Such technologies, Mr Anttonen said, were available for Ghana to adopt.
He said although 70 per cent of Finland’s forest was owned by private individuals, it was protected, adding that Finland could collaborate with Ghana to regenerate Ghana’s forests, just as it did with Uruguay which had lost all its forests.