President John Mahama has urged Japanese businesses to seize Ghana's strategic position as a gateway to Africa and take advantage of a continental market of 1.4 billion people.

He described Ghana as "a stable, democratic, business-friendly gateway to West Africa and the continent," with a growing consumer market, improving macroeconomic fundamentals, and clear reforms to reduce the cost of doing business.

The President was speaking at the Ghana Presidential Investment Forum on the sidelines of the 9th Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD IX) in Japan on Wednesday.

He pointed to Ghana's strategic geographical location and its status as the host of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat, which enables duty-free, tariff-free trade across almost 50 African countries. "The sub-regional market, which is West Africa, is 400 million people.