Shippers’ Authority address trade challenges

The Ghana Shippers’ Authority says it has made useful inputs to the Rotterdam Rules, an international legal framework for the international carriage of goods with a sea link.

It also said it has reduced clearance steps at the country’s ports from 25 to about 15 and succeeded in fixing the foreign exchange rate for a week instead of the daily changes in the rates.

Dr Kofi Mbiah, Chief Executive of GSA, who made these known recently, said his outfit has further undertaken cocoa freight rate negotiations and stabilised the country’s cocoa economy, which resulted also in cost savings to Cocobod and Ghana to the tune of $10 million annually.

In 2013, GSA was able to negotiate the tariffs of the Ghana Ports & Harbours Authority (GPHA) and that of Freight Forwarders, he said.

Dr Mbiah said the Authority periodically conducted research into challenges confronting shippers and the findings led to the formulation of appropriate solutions to shippers’ problems.

To further make trade facilitation easier, he said GSA has rolled out a systematic trade facilitation mechanism to protect and promote the interests of shippers in inland transportation.

The systematic trade facilitation mechanism is to ensure safe, reliable and cost-effective maritime transport and logistics operations in Ghana.

Dr Mbiah said the GSA has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with counterparts in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger for the unfettered use of the Ghana’s corridor for transit trade to accelerate inter-regional trade.

To this end, two Transit Shipper Committees in Tema and Takoradi comprising relevant stakeholders in the transit trade had also been established for the purpose of discussing and eliminating bottlenecks in the transit trade.