Ghana’s stable political environment, favourable legal framework, constantly improving infrastructure, improving macroeconomic fundamentals and abundant natural resources, amongst others, are bracing to the country’s investor attractiveness. With a robust economy and stable investment flows, the future outlook for Ghana is encouraging.

The country’s capacity to fully absorb and benefit from increased investments and new technologies depends a great deal on the availability, quality and efficiency of more basic forms of infrastructure. The Infrastructure Sector comprises the ports, roads, rail, aviation, electricity, water supply, transportation, telecommunications sub-sectors.

Whilst public investment in infrastructure has increased, the country is also actively engaged in involving private sector to meet growing demand, through the Public Private Partnership (PPP) initiative. The policies of the Ghanaian Government seek to encourage investments in domestic infrastructure from both local and foreign private capital. 2.0 SECTOR COMPOSITION Unlike in many other African countries, Ghana’s infrastructure backbone covers the entire national territory and helps to link different parts of the country. The country’s Infrastructure sector comprises the ports, roads, rail, aviation, electricity, water supply, transportation, telecommunications sub-sectors. The distribution of infrastructure networks in the country generally reflects the spatial distribution of economic activity, with a greater density of transport, power, and information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure in the south and southwest of the country than in the north (PwC, Africa gearing up).

FOCUS ON VARIOUS SUB-SEGMENTS AND ALLIED SERVICES

Hard and Soft Infrastructure: It is quite noteworthy that the soft components of Ghana’s infrastructure base (like telecom, air and port services) have witnessed improving performance over the past two decades, thereby helping the country to maintain satisfactory growth. For instance, the country’s rising trade has been reflected in growing container port traffic, which increased from a low of 544,294 in 2007 to about 925,964 in 2017.

Correspondingly, certain hard components, like roads, have witnessed tremendous expansion over the last two decades. Performance in the railway sector has however been met with challenges, in terms of access or spread of rail length.

TRANSPORTATION: The Transport sub-sector is made up mainly of road transport, maritime and water transport, aviation and rail. The fundamental policy objective of the transport sector is to establish an efficient, a modally complementary and integrated transport system. Therefore, Government encourages private sector engagement in this sector.

Aviation: Ghana presently has one international airport- The Kotoka International Airport, located in the Greater Accra Region, which connects the country and the rest of the world. There are also four other domestic airports (located in Kumasi, Sunyani, Tamale and Takoradi) and two airstrips (located in Wa and Kpong). The construction of a new airport in Ho in the Volta Region is currently underway, with major works completed. An airstrip is also being developed in Wa and is scheduled to be operational before the close of 2018.

The country is in the advanced stages of establishing a new national airline. Despite this, Ghana is served by a number of airlines that connect international routes via Johannesburg, Cape Town, Addis Ababa, Nairobi, London, Amsterdam, Dubai and Dar-Es-Salaam etc.

Major airlines operating in the country include Africa World Airlines, Ethiopian Airlines, South African Airways, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, British Airways, Middle East Airlines (MEA), Kenya Airways, Alitalia, Virgin Airways, Royal Air Maroc, Lufthansa, Egyptair, etc.

Government has embarked on a program to improve the infrastructure at the various airports including the expansion of the Kotoka International Airport and the upgrade of the Kumasi Airport and the Tamale Airports into international status.

The chunk of Ghana’s air transport market is international and over the past few years, passenger numbers have grown massively in this regard. With improving income levels complemented with the location of foreign enterprises in the country, the air transport industry has good prospects. Relatively lower volumes in the domestic air transport sector also offers enormous future potential. The figures below highlight trends in the sub-sector.