A City of Amsterdam trade mission headed by Mark van der Horst, Alderman for Port Affairs, arrived in the country on Saturday, as a follow up of a visit of the Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II to The Netherlands last year.
The mission’s programme includes visits to a number of shipping terminals in both Takoradi and Tema, the launching of a new company and a visit to the Asantehene.
Mr. Van der Horst will also meet President Kufuor and several of Ministers of State.
There will be a presentation about the Port of Amsterdam and port businesses will have the opportunity to intensify and extend their network of contacts.
Apart from the Amsterdam Port Authority, the principal participants in the trade mission are ten port-related companies, the Amsterdam Chamber of Commerce and Register Amsterdam, which runs the population register in the city and will be investigating opportunities for co-operation in the fields of register management, registration and verifications.
There is also Ghanaian interest in bringing the current exhibition about the Ashanti people at Amsterdam’s Royal Tropical Institute and Museum to the country.
According to a press release from the Royal Netherlands Embassy, the main purpose of the trade mission is to reinforce existing economic and administrative contacts, and to establish new ones, so as to forge a good relationship between Amsterdam and Ghana on social and port-related matters.
Otumfuo Osei Tutu II paid a visit to Amsterdam in late June 2002, and in October last year Mr. Van der Horst came to Ghana to pave the way for the trade mission.
The release said it is particularly important for Amsterdam as a traditional cocoa-processing region and the world’s largest cocoa port to maintain stable relations with Ghana, one of the most important cocoa-producing nations on the west coast of Africa.
From Ghana, the trade mission will leave for Lagos, Nigeria on March 13th.
Source: GhanaWeb
