The Speaker of Parliament, Mr Alban Sumana Kings­ford Bagbin, on Wednesday opened the 2nd Edition of the Northern Trade Industry and In­vestment Summit in Tamale in the Northern Region, with a call on the indigenes to create a right environ­ment for economic development.

The five-day summit is on the theme: “Enhancing trade and in­dustry in Northern Ghana through capacity development and strategic investment”.

It is being jointly organised by the Centre For Policy Development (CPD), the University for Devel­opment Studies (UDS), Ghana Ex­port Promotion Authority (GEPA), Northern Development Authority (NDA), Ghana Enterprise Agency (GEA), Ghana Investment Promo­tion Centre (GIPC), Ghana Free Zones Authority (GFZA), Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA), Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and the Northern Regional Coordinating Council (NRCC).

The Speaker said the people of the north could not achieve all that they were doing if they did not have a good environment to execute the policies.

Mr Bagbin said a key objective of the summit was to promote investment in sectors that had po­tentials to drive economic growth and create employment opportuni­ties for the area.

He said it was imperative to prioritise initiatives to support the growth of small and medium sized enterprises (SMES) to enhance infrastructure development and leverage technology to unlock the regions’ full economic potentials.

“We in the Parliament of Ghana understand that targeted capacity building and strategic investment are the cornerstone of sustainable development,” he said.

He said Parliament remained committed to approving policies to empower businesses in the five regions to enhance the skills of its workforce and attract both domes­tic and foreign investors.

The Chief Executive Officer of the Northern Development Authority (NDA), Mr Sulley Sam­bian, said the summit served as a platform to showcase the immense potential of the northern ecological zone and to highlight the oppor­tunities that existed for trade, in­dustry, investment, and the overall improvement of livelihoods.

He stated that the potential for growth was vast and the opportu­nities were enormous, and that they were committed to fostering an environment to drive industrialisa­tion and attract investments.

The Paramount Chief of Nan­ton Traditional Area, Naa Bawa Mahamadu V, thanked the organ­isers for the efforts to hold the summit in northern Ghana, adding that the north had a lot of poten­tials, and this was the only way they could unlock them to the rest of the world.