Afua Asabea Asare
The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA), Ms. Afua Asabea Asare has bemoaned what seems to be a “winner takes all” attitude that is becoming characteristic of some exporters in the country.
She made the remark during a Radio discussion on GBC’s URA Radio 89.7 MHz in Bolgatanga when she embarked on a 4 Day working tour of 3 Northern Regions to interact with exporters in the region who deal mainly in Shea Nuts and Shea butter processing as well as Basket Weaving.
As part of GEPA’s agenda to reach a target of $5.3 billion export trade by 2021, the CEO is embarking on a tour of all the regions to interact with exporters to identify the challenges they face and ways in which these can be mitigated. She strongly believes this will go a long way to improve productivity and increase export yield.
In responding to whether our local exporters are able to produce to meet global demands during the interview, she noted that she has identified a very worrying trend where some exporters receive orders that are beyond their production capacities but they keep it to themselves instead of leveraging on the capabilities of others in their industry to deliver the required volume to keep everyone in business.
“We have seen several instances where a buyer abroad place an order for a quantum of goods to be delivered by a local exporter who doesn’t have that capacity, but instead of him/her bringing others on board to deliver to the buyer to keep the business, they keep it to themselves until they’re able to deliver just a fraction of the order by themselves and most times they end up losing the whole contract.” She lamented
She advised exporters to work in groups whenever they need arise.
“Exporters must begin to synergise to have competitive advantage in order to deliver on big ticket orders. As an export promotion authority our major interest is to see our non-traditional export volumes go high and translate us into an export led economy which will correct our trade balance, Ms Afua added.