Ghana, and in particularly Kumasi was the focus at a recent conference hosted by Jeffrey Sachs’ Millennium Cities Initiative (MCI) at Columbia University in the United States.

Experts met to share the many investment opportunities that abound in the Kumasi area. 97% percent of foreign investments go to the Accra metropolitan area; Kumasi is ripe for picking, delegates heard.

Kumasi is one of eight African cities selected by the MCI that enables the Earth Institute of Columbia to drive resources and partnerships to the adopted cities to accelerate their development.

Ghana’s Ambassador to the US, Kwame Bawuah listed food processing, ICT, Petrochemicals, mines, cocoa, commercial real estate and infrastructure as areas where prospective investors should consider. He emphasized Ghana’s constitution contained a solid regulatory framework for investment.

Foreign companies operating in Ghana attended to tell their success stories.  Germany’s MGF said its building cooperatives with Ghanaian palm oil farmers to generate feed stock for bio-fuel in Europe.

Hobson Associates’ Karen Hobson showed conference delegates a presentation on building affordable hostels at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology to meet student’s housing needs, while KPMG said bamboo, bountiful in Kumasi area, is actually stronger than steel and can be made for utility and sold cheaply.

Sachs predicted an exciting economic future for Ghana due to its location, an educated workforce and political stability.