It is also working at turning the region into a free trade zone (FTZ) enclave where resident manufacturing companies will be incentivised with tax rebates, among other privileges, to set up factories in the area.

The designation of the region as a FTZ formed part of efforts by the SADA to create an enabling environment for the private sector to facilitate the transformation of the Northern Savanna Ecological Zone (NSEZ) into an economic hub.

SADA's Director of Infrastructure, Lands, Environment and Natural Resources, Dr Emmanuel Abeere-Inga, disclosed this to the Daily Graphic in an interview in Accra.

Assessment

According to him, recent assessments show that a FTZ in the Upper East Region will help attract the private sector to set up factories and manufacturing plants in the region to assemble electronics and also produce goods for the country and neighbouring Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. This will help cut down imports while reducing the prices of products sold in the zone, he explained.

“It will also reduce the deterioration of the roads following its use by heavy duty vehicles that carted goods from the southern parts of the country to the savannah zone and neighbouring countries,” Dr Abeere-Inga said.

"We see that a FTZ in the Upper East will allow factories to emerge for people from Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali to come here and buy rather than making that long trip to Accra.

"This will be of huge benefit to the region not only in job creation, but also in promoting trade and partnership between Ghana and its landlocked neighbours," he explained.

Master plan

The turning of the UER into a FTZ and the construction of the logistics centre and the dry port is one of 12 projects the authority has designated as game-changer projects under its medium-term development plan, the SADA Master Plan.

In the plan, SADA envisages that the port will become the neck between the Tema and Takoradi ports and the country's landlocked neighbours by facilitating the transfer of transit trade from the two seaports to Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger and vice versa.

Dr Abeere-Inga said economic analysis of the region showed that companies that produced consumables such as plastics and television sets would prefer to establish factories in the UER, where their products could easily be transported across the borders to neighbouring countries.

He said SADA was, therefore, taking advantage of the region's closeness to the country's northern neighbours to ignite growth in the area and the NSEZ in general.

"We already see the FTZ becoming an assembly point for businesses because with the Tamale Airport now an international airport, you can import things straight to Tamale and offload them to the UER to be assembled."

"This way, the goods can be sold to Burkina Faso and the rest and that will also stimulate growth in the Tamale Airport," Dr Abeere-Inga said.