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The Brand Ghana Office has begun a campaign aimed at winning the hearts and minds of transport business associations and community households to be part of the strategy to promote Ghana. Business associations form a critical part of the brand Ghana strategy as the first port of call for first-time visitors to the country. The Chief Executive Officer of the Brand Ghana Office, Mr Mathias Kotia, said this at a media interaction in Accra. According to him, the objective of the Brand Ghana Programme was to build, enhance and sustain national unity and cohesion, pride, patriotism, loyalty and identification. �We realise that transport associations like the GPRTU and PROTOA are those that interact with visitors and foreigners a lot, so we are winning them over to be part of a strategy of promoting Ghana,� Mr Kotia said. �In an evolving global order, sustainable success belongs to the nations that consistently craft, design, deliver and communicate superior sustainable solutions. Ghana has to consciously inspire her citizenry to a pro-Ghana mindset and behaviours.� His office plans to grow Ghana�s reputation in order to improve on Ghana�s global competitiveness for improved foreign direct investment (FDI), exports of brands of Ghana origin, tourism, and trade, among others. According to him, Ghana was born to be truly democratic, prosperous and a united nation founded on freedom and social justice but those ideals had been overshadowed by the absence of a purposeful citizenship programme to consciously affect the lives of its citizens to engender active shared values. The �negative brand Africa image associated with diseases, instability, violent crime, war, famine and corruption limits Ghana�s attractiveness and, for that matter, her development efforts�. �To attract the desired international attention and participation in our economy the image of Ghana needs to be positively differentiated from negative brand Africa,� he said. But courting business and transport associations as the first contacts is Mr Kotia�s sure bet of promoting the positive image of Ghana to visitors to the country. This, he said, would spur other small and medium-scale enterprises to build on those powerful brands. Among the likely powerful Ghanaian commercial brands to be promoted include Rlg, Kasapreko bitters and Zoomlion.