Food and fortune

Moving to Ghana proved a life-changing experience for Angela Huang and her husband, who have built a growing business empire in the country

In Accra, where the price of Chinese food is similar to that of French cuisine, Angela Huang's restaurant business is thriving and she has plans for expansion. For the managing director of Sweet Roses Co Ltd, a Chinese restaurant chain in Ghana, 2012 was a busy year - she opened a new restaurant in Accra and a three star hotel in Tema.

Opening a Chinese restaurant in Accra would have cost $100,000 in 1993, according to Huang. Today, due to the country's rapid economic growth, the cost would be double that.

"But the money is still worth investing, the market potential here is dynamic and more service facilities and businesses will be improved and established to meet surging market demand," she says.

In comparison with some other African nations such as South Africa, Kenya and Egypt, Ghana's service sector is underdeveloped, with a limited number of hotels, restaurants and supermarkets.

To boost these service industries, Ghana's Ministry of Trade and Industry is planning to build six large-scale hotels and add more than 40 restaurants in the Accra area by the end of 2015, using government funding alongside private domestic and foreign investment.

"While meeting this target can be a long-term demanding job, the current unbalanced supply-demand relationship in Ghana's service sector has offered us an advantage to be the early bird in seizing market share as much as possible," Huang says.

During her time in Ghana, Huang has gained a reputation for being gifted in seeking new market growth opportunities. "We are expanding our business scope right now because we are not eyeing customers who like Chinese food, but a much bigger market space including hotels, car rental and retail businesses," she says.

With more than 170 employees, including eight chefs and two accountants from the Chinese mainland, Huang operates three Chinese restaurants and three-star hotels in Accra, Tema and Kumasi. To further diversify her business, she will open another two Western food restaurants, a Chinese food supermarket and a small car rental firm in the Accra region in 2013.

Huang's investment in the West African country is timely. Relying on a rich natural resource base, Ghana has taken a leading role in developing its economy from energy, timber processing, fishing and gold mining and has now has one of the highest GDP per capita levels on the continent at $3,256, according to a report by the International Monetary Fund in May 2012.

The 46-year-old initially came to Ghana in 1987, when her husband Joseph Huang was dispatched to Kumasi to sell his company's fishing gear. Both of them fell in love with Ghana and realized that the opportunities available there could change their lives.

After six years of selling fishing equipment the couple opened their first restaurant in a two-story building in Kumasi, with seven employees, selling fried beef with green peppers, fried rice and noodles.

"At the beginning there weren't a lot of people from the Chinese mainland working or doing business here, so all our food was designed to fit local tastes," she says.

"Ghanaians quite like fried meat and food with a tomato flavor, especially fried beef with green pepper and tomato soup with lemon grass."

Huang's first restaurant would sell on average more than 20 portions of fried beef with green peppers on a weekday and up to 40 a day on the weekend. With a menu price of $6, the dish has become the house special in all her restaurants today.

"Though many of our friends cannot understand why we came such a long way to West Africa, we knew the reality that in a mature market such as Britain, France or the United States. Chinese food has already lost the price battle with French, Italian and even Thai food. Dishes on a Chinese menu are much cheaper than European and there is no way to make a decent profit from developed markets," Huang says.

"However, in this emerging market, you are fully capable of competing with French or Indian restaurants, because you and them are all new arrivals. In fact, you should have been to Ghana in the 1990s; the service sector was totally undeveloped and there were a number of commercial opportunities available indeed."

Having spent much time operating Chinese restaurants, Huang is looking for local or foreign business partners to open French and Italian restaurants under a new brand name she designed in Ghana's capital. So far, Huang has received a number of chefs' resumes and phone calls from France, Portugal, Algeria, Senegal and Benin.

"Led by the employees of international energy, telecommunication and construction companies, foreign diplomats, local elites and a surging number of tourists, European food has become a hot trend in this country since 2010," Huang says. "For sure, the restaurant business will go through a shift here sooner or later, as customers here are willing to taste new flavors."

Oil is Ghana's biggest earner, but tourism is fast developing and has become the country's fourth highest source of foreign exchange. The government has made increasing tourism a priority and has built new roads, enlarged national parks and renovated historic buildings as part of its efforts. More than 1.1 million foreign travelers visited Ghana in 2011, a 6 percent increase on the previous year, according to the Ghana Tourism Authority.

These efforts, as well as the growing number of Chinese businesspeople visiting Ghana, have stimulated growth in the country's hotel industry making it a lucrative business.

Targeting the growing number of tourists and business travelers, Huang and her husband opened their first hotel, the Robin Hood Inn, in Accra in 2010. The hotel rate is between $80 and $160 per night and car rental, breakfast in bed and an on call medical service can also be provided.

With encouraging market returns, the couple is now reinvesting $340,000 to enlarge their second Robin Hood Inn, a seven-story building in Tema, which opened in 2012.

Their daughter is reading A-level courses at a British international school in Accra, and can speak a few words of Akan, the main language spoken in Ghana. She wants to enrol in either a top British or a US university to complete her undergraduate studies this year.

One of the biggest issues for Huang's business is the speed of deliveries from the Chinese mainland and Taiwan to Ghana. By air, it normally takes three days to deliver food, and at least 45 days to transport tea, condiments, decorations and other materials by container ship.

"Local investors have already discovered that investing in the service sector won't cost a fortune but could provide fruitful returns in the short term," she says.

"Under such circumstances, you have to be open minded and get more high-quality food, electronic appliances, wireless Internet service equipment and new business ideas from China to promote service here."

zhongnan@chinadaily.com.cn