Good prospects for Ghana's export sector

Accra, May 30, GNA - There are good prospects in future for Ghana's export sector, provided it gets the right stimuli in terms of price, quality and meeting delivery schedules.

The major challenge was how to deepen outreach programmes so that interventions get closer to disadvantaged communities, Deputy Trade and Industry Minister, Kwadwo Affram Asiedu said on Wednesday in Accra. The Minister was speaking at the annual Export Trade Financing forum organised by the Ghana Export Promotion Council. The forum was aimed at identifying the financing challenges to doing business in Ghana as well as exploring the various financing opportunities available to exporters.

It was also meant to create an opportunity for the banking sector and other financial institutions to explain their existing financial facilities to the exporting community, and to discuss public/private sector financing schemes and funds available to support and service exports.

Mr. Asiedu said developments in the non-traditional export sector indicated that through a prudent mix of fiscal and monetary policies and improvements in infrastructure, the country had been able to break away from the stagnation of 400 million dollars recorded by the sector in the early 2000.

He said earnings from the sector reached 892 million dollars, as at the end of 2006, saying, "I am very optimistic that the target of one billion dollars set for the end of 2008 is attainable." The Deputy Minister drew the attention of stakeholders on the need to support the programmes and projects that had been identified by the Ministry to boost the export trade, because those interventions were meant to promote a vibrant, productive and competitive Small and Medium-Scale Enterprise sector as well as addressing the problem of spatial imbalance in development.

Among the interventions are the production of selected cash crops for export, including those under the President's Special Initiatives and the District Industrialisation Programme, as well as the development of critical infrastructure that would facilitate export trade and logistics management. Others include the establishment of export trading houses to specialise in export marketing and act as export brokers between SMEs and selected external markets.

Mr. Asiedu stated that the international market place had become "so turbulent and keenly competitive that only the fittest can survive", This, he said, required adequate knowledge of the factors that contribute to successful business transactions, especially the acquisition of knowledge by the exporters on the know-how and skills for product development, packaging, shipping requirements and documentation, customs procedures and regulations, marketing techniques and consumer preference.

He tasked stakeholders to reassess their roles and activities to enhance export trade to contribute to government's efforts at improving the lot of the people through wealth creation, employment generation and poverty reduction. Dr. Paul Acquah, Governor of the Bank of Ghana who spoke on the topic; "The New Ghana Cedi and Export Transactions" said the redenominated Ghana cedi would be beneficial for export trade transactions.

He noted that Ghana's current currency regime was not supportive of business transactions, adding that the re-denomination of the cedi was aimed at improving the role of the currency as a means of exchange, as an integral part of reforming the payment systems in Ghana, as they were regarded as essential part of the financial infrastructure of modern market economy.

Dr Acquah held that such an efficient currency regime was a necessary component to diversify exports and enhance productivity to achieve sustainable growth, and cited some emerging market economies that had made significant efficiency gains from re-denomination of their national currencies. Mr Emmanuel Boateng, Executive Secretary of the GEPC called on stakeholders to be more creative and imaginative in their approach to the export sector, as government could no longer afford to provide all of the subsidised export financing that the companies needed.