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Ghana's foreign policy concept shifts to economic diplomacy: Botchwey
She made the comments when he appeared before the Appointments Committee of Parliament on Monday.
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“The foreign policy of this country has shifted focus from what we call normal diplomacy, that is, good neighbourliness, good relations, making sure that the countries surrounding you, you are very chummy with them and all of that," she said.
She added: "What we have moved to is economic diplomacy…and that is to ensure that in every relationship that Ghana engages in, that relationship should end up in promoting and protecting the interest of Ghana and also to ensure that it ends up in giving us positive dividends towards our development economically. So, that is the thrust of our foreign policy right now."
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In addition, the Member of Parliament for Anyaa Sowutuom said Ghana will deepen its relationship with ECOWAS and the African Union.
Ayorkor Botchwey noted that Ghana will work to shape consensus within the ECOWAS region, adding that ECOWAS has a potential market of 350 million people to facilitate regional trade.
“In the NPP manifesto, we have decided that one area that we need to focus on is the area of our engagement with our multilateral agencies such as ECOWAS and the African Union (AU). ECOWAS, because we believe that with the industrialisation that we intend to embark on, we should be able to trade within the region, that is the West African region, and also within the continent and, therefore, our foreign policy is to make ECOWAS strong, is to make the African Union strong and we should make our membership felt within these agencies,” she noted.
She added: “We should be able as a country, as we have done in the past, to shape consensus within the ECOWAS region because if we are able to get things right and get ECOWAS to work very well, we have a ready market of 350 million.
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"Right now, Ghana or West Africa, and by extension Africa, we do not trade amongst ourselves. We always look outside the continent to trade with Europe or the Asian countries. I think it’s about time we start looking within because we have so much potential but we need to get things right."
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