Government increases exports to $5 billion

Government says it is determined to increase the country’s exports from the current $2.3 billion to $5 billion by 2017.

Haruna Iddrisu, Minister of Trade and Industry, who made this known while addressing a National Forum on ‘Technical Regulations and Standards’ in Accra, said government had identified new market for the country’s exports.

“As part of government’s trade and investment promotion policy, new markets had been identified and trade offices opened in Turkey, China, Japan and South Africa.

“It is time to diversify the selection of countries for the exportation of Ghana’s products,” he said.

Haruna said the Ghana Standard Authority (GSA) and the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) had been supported to improve quality standards, stating that the European Union (EU) and Germany had supported Ghana to attain standard and quality infrastructure in trade capacity building.

He disclosed that the Ministry was revising some provisions of GSA, stressing that a new bill will soon be submitted to Parliament and cabinet for consideration.

The Minister said when the bill is passed it would help strengthen and improve standards of the GSA and its relationship with the FDA.

The new bill, he said, will have the potential of establishing a world-class national quality infrastructure and technical regulation framework in Ghana.

Iddrisu said the Ministry was collaborating with the European Union’s sponsored Trade Related Assistance and Quality Enabling (TRAQUE) programme to revise the national quality policy, which was developed in 2008 but never approved.

“For the meantime, the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) Quality Policy and the Quality Infrastructure Documents, which were prepared under the West African Quality Programme, had become reference documents for member states,” he explained.