Panafrican News Agency. Africa News Online. July 18, 2000
ACCRA, Ghana (PANA) - The 10th session of the Ghana-Cuba Joint Commission continued in Accra Tuesday, with co-operation in the areas of trade, investment and finance expected to dominate discussions.
Ghana's foreign minister, Victor Gbeho, said at the opening session Monday that the commission had recorded success in such areas as education, health, and social development.
He expressed the hope that the session would examine and recommend appropriate measures to increase trade and economic activities.
The three-day session would see the five-member Cuban delegation, led by Noemi Benitez, deputy foreign minister, and officials of Ghana's health, roads and transport, education, agriculture and trade ministries, reviewing progress made since the last session in Havana, Cuba in 1998.
They would also adopt strategies to "deepen and expand spheres of continued co-operation between our two countries and among our people," Gbeho said.
He added that developing countries should follow Cuba's "praiseworthy intellectual contribution to the debate on the relative merits of globalisation and liberalisation."
"It should help to produce the road-map that developing countries need to preserve their freedom, sovereignty and economic health in these troubled times," he noted.
Gbeho described Ghana's partnership with Cuba as "an article of faith in emphasising our political and economic freedom."
"No matter what system or ideology we are branded in, so long as it helps to emphasise our sovereignty and also puts food on the table for Ghanaians, we will continue to cherish the partnership," he said
Recalling an appeal by President Jerry Rawlings at the recent South-South Summit in Cuba to the US government to lift sanctions against Cuba, he said the initiative of the Clinton administration to ease some of the restrictions is a proof of its sensitivity to international opinion.
He announced that Cuba is to start a long distance learning scheme for Africa using information technology and said it would be the beginning of an educational revolution on the continent should it succeed.
Salia, who is also a co-chairman of the commission, said the meeting should come out with far-sighted but achievable targets.
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