How does iPhone handle international codes?

Hi everyone

Because of my job I move a lot between mainly two countries: Italy and Ghana. In order to be able to call any contact regardless of my position I always save new numbers including the international code (for Italy +39 and for Ghana +233)

The standard format in Italy does not include a 0 at the beginning, hence dialing either of the two options below will produce the same result

+39 123 4567890

123 4567890

In Ghana, however you can either add an initial 0 for local calls, or need to drop it when using the international code, hence

023 1234567 - works fine

+233 23 1234567 - works fine

+233 023 1234567 - does not work

My problem is that all my contacts are saved in the second format (+233 23 1234567). When someone calls me, although the number is saved in my address book, the phone doesn't display the contact's name but the number in the first format (023 1234567).

This is very annoying. One solution is to change all the numbers to the first format, but this will 1) require a lot of time and 2) not allow me to directly call when I'm abroad. Before buying the iphone I was using a blackberry, which handled the issue fine.

Any suggestions?