Pact on Business French Project

Story: Lucy Adoma Yeboah. December 28, 2007 (page 34)
THE Ministry of Trade, Industry, Private Sector Development (PSD) and the President’s Special Initiative (PSI) has signed a consultancy contract with five institutions to train Ghanaians in speaking French for business purposes.
The institutions to undertake the “Business French Project” which begins early next year, are the Deloitte and Touché, Alliance Francaise, Chambre De Commerce et D’Industrie de Paris and Integrated Solutions.
Signing the contract on behalf of the ministry, the sector Minister, Mr Joe Baidoe-Ansah, said the Business French Project was designed to reduce and reinforce the French linguistic barriers with an overall objective of improving Ghana’s integration with the West African sub-region.
The Minister said about 360 stakeholders in both private and government institutions would be trained in the initial stages of the project which would offer three levels of training for beginners, intermediate and advanced levels.
The French government is to finance the project under its Trade Capacity Building programme for developing countries.
Mr Baidoe-Ansah pointed out that “as we all know, apart from the sea on the South, Ghana is surrounded by French speaking countries on all other sides. Moreover, 10 out of the 15 members states of the Economic Commission of West Africa States (ECOWAS) speak French”.
He said the inability of majority of Ghanaians to speak French was a big obstacle for the Ghanaian businessmen to take advantage of trade opportunities in the Francophone countries in ECOWAS.
He said the advanced level of the project would combine linguistic training with more technical aspects, including commercial law.
He said in anticipation of any challenges that could arise in the initial period, the ministry had constituted a “Business French Steering Committee” to manage any such challenges.
The minister stated that international trade provided an important engine for private sector development and reduction in global poverty, adding that initiatives to accelerate trade through removal of non-tariff barriers and lowered trade costs were now increasingly recognised as key factors that affected private sector performance.
Mr Baidoe-Ansah said trade facilitation reforms could, therefore, have important benefits for development by stimulating trade, attracting foreign direct investment, improving the collection of trade taxes and reducing incentives for smuggling and corruption with its resultant reduction in transaction costs.
Speaking on behalf of the institutions, a representative of Deloitte and Touché’, Mr Francis Kpogo-Diaba, gave the assurance that the institutions would help make the learning of French attractive to business people.