Day: July 12, 2022

ACCRA— Ghana and Serbia have rekindled bilateral relations with the re-opening of the Embassy of the Republic of Serbia in Accra on Friday, July 8.

The re-opening of the Embassy was preceded by a bilateral meeting between the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey and her Serbian counterpart Nikola Selakovic.

During the meeting, the Foreign Ministers discussed areas of mutual interest which included Agriculture, Defense, Digitalisation, Artificial Intelligence, and Trade and Investment among others. Both Ministers expressed the hope that the rejuvenated relations will be further strengthened to the benefit of the citizens of both countries.

Botchwey commended the Government of Serbia for its continuous contribution to the developmental efforts of Ghana, particularly in the areas of Education, Sports, Culture, and capacity-building.

She called for the resumption of discussion of the Permanent Joint Commission for Cooperation between the two countries to help streamline the areas of cooperation. In that regard, she proposed that the first meeting be held in October, 2022.

For his part, Nikola Selakovic was optimistic that the re-opening of the Serbian Embassy will further enhance the bilateral relations between the two countries and hoped that Ghana will also re-open her Embassy in Belgrade in due course.

He commended the Government and People of Ghana for the warm reception accorded to his side and hoped to reciprocate in good measure.

Ghana and Serbia have enjoyed fruitful bilateral relations since the era of the then Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), under President Josef Broz Tito and Ghana’s first president Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. The two presidents shared a personal friendship and were part of the founding fathers of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).

Source: Nam News Network

HARARE— Zimbabwe will start selling gold coins this month as a way to tame inflation that has weakened the local currency, the country’s central bank said.

The governor of the central bank, John Mangudya, noted that the coins, known as Mosi-oa-Tunya, would be available for sale from July 25 in local currency and United States dollar at a price based on the prevailing price of gold, according to The Citizen.

Mangudya said the introduction of the gold coins would reduce pressure on the US dollar in the open market, which the government has said is responsible for the depreciation of the currency.

“As you are aware, the US dollar has largely been used for two things; for the importation of goods and store of value,” he said. “The gold coins will provide an alternative investment option to the US dollar as a store of value.”

He further stressed that investors “that purchase gold coins will be able to preserve value and make good profits when gold prices rise,” adding that the coins will contain one “troy ounce of gold and would be sold through normal banking channels.”

Even before the gold coins become available for sale, the country’s finance minister has said the move will not solve the country’s high inflation and structural challenges.

“Instead it is another gimmick of extraction and arbitrage. They never tire from ways of transferring wealth from the poor,” Tendai Biti said. He led the Treasury when Zimbabwe dollarised at the height of hyperinflation in 2009, according to The Citizen.

He continued: “The Zimbabwe dollar is in tatters due to, among other things, the lack of reserves and the absence of anything to back it up. There is, therefore, no sense in selling gold when it can’t be used to back up the tattered currency.”

Biti also noted that selling gold in local currency allows cartels with billions in Zimbabwe dollars to hedge the same with gold the same way they have been buying the US dollars on the black market.

“It also allows some foreign crooks to launder their money in Zimbabwe through gold coins,” he said.

Zimbabwe’s currency crisis has seen the annual inflation rate jump to 192 percent in June. There has also been a sharp depreciation in the Zimbabwean dollar, which analysts say lost over two-thirds of its value against the dollar this year.

Source: Nam News Network

ACCRA— Ghana and its neighbouring countries on the African continent have been urged to review their agriculture and food security strategies to reduce the dependency on other countries around the world.

The Global Monitoring for Environment and Security and Africa (GMES & Africa) said this had become necessary after the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict exposed some significant gaps in the continent’s agriculture and food security strategies.

Dr Tidiane Ouattara, the Coordinator of GMES said that: “The Ukraine crisis showed Africa that food security is an issue because we depend on Ukraine for several things and on Europe also for several things. It means that Africa now has to rethink its agriculture and food security strategy.”

He noted that data acquisition and processing had become more than critical because it was a pillar for decision makers to develop good policies, and had appropriate interventions, which was being provided by space science and technology.

Dr Ouattara said this at workshop in Accra on best practices in data acquisition and data processing as an enabler for addressing daily needs of scientists and citizens as well as national development issues.

“We have to talk together to share best practices and to look at how to complement each other. Together we are stronger and Africa should speak one language,” he said.

Dr Kwame Agyekum, Marine Remote Sensing Scientist, added that data was important for Africa in utilising its resources for the benefit of the citizenry, and national development.

He said that: “You realise that Africa is endowed with a lot of resources. We have vast oceans and very fertile lands. We have realised that we need to manage these resources, but we need to collect information about these resources first.”

That, Dr Agyekum said, was being done through partnership between the African Union (AU) and European Union, adding that the meeting was to enable stakeholders strategise and “take advantage of data to make good use of our resources.”

The maiden Continental Service Workshop on Coastal and Marine Services of GMES & Africa was convened by the African Union Commission and attended by leading implementers and partners.

They include University of Ghana (UG), Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Regional Economic Communities and European Technical Institutions.

The GMES & Africa phase II is a continuity of phase I of the programme that is looking at building on the achievements of the first phase.

Representatives of the five Regional Economic Communities in Africa, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, UNECA, GMES & Africa Project Management Unit and African Union Commission Departments were at the meeting.

Others were European Partners, including European Commission’s Directorate for the Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship & SMEs (DG-GROW), European Space Agency, European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites, and the Joint Research Centre.

Source: Nam News Network