Dr. Afua Asabea Asare, CEO, GEPA
GHANA’S NATIONAL Export Development Strategy (NEDS) is being harnessed to grow non-traditional exports (NTEs) from $2.8 billion this year to $25.3 billion over a period of 10 years.
Dr. Afua Asabea Asare, CEO of the Ghana Exports Promotion Authority (GEPA), who announced this to senior journalists yesterday in Accra, said the strategy would position Ghana as a competitive export-led industrialised economy, particularly if it is fully funded and implemented.
She said apart from a limited range of manufactured goods, Ghana has historically exported many raw commodities which fetched low prices and insufficient foreign exchange revenues while downstream along the traditional exports value chains in the destination market countries, considerable wealth and jobs were created.
“This situation was considered unacceptable. The government therefore took a bold strategic decision to transform the structure of the economy from a raw commodity export-based to a manufacturing industrial export-driven economy”, adding this was backed with the launch of the policy document titled ‘The 10-Point Agenda for Industrial Transformation’.
She commended the about 100 stakeholders who got together over weeks and months to put the NEDS document together.
Yofi Grant, board member of GEPA and CEO of Ghana Investments Promotion Centre (GIPC), said Ghanaian farmers who produced about 67 per cent of raw materials for export to chocolate manufacturing companies abroad only earned five per cent of profits while buyers at the other side of the market enjoyed all the profits.
He said the regime was obstructive to Ghanaians; hence, the need for a new policy document to help enrich local manufacturers through value-addition.
Alex Dadzawa, a manager at GEPA, said since resources are limited, NEDS has adopted a priority products selection approach for concentrating resources on some 17 priority products for starters, adding that NEDS rests on three pillars—the expansion and diversification of the supply base for value-added industrial exports and services; the improvement of the business regulatory environment for export; and the building as well as expansion of the required human capital for industrial export development and marketing.
The 17 priority products include processed cocoa, processed cashew, horticultural products, processed oil seeds, fish and fishery products, textiles, garments and apparel, natural rubber sheets, aluminium products, articles of plastic and petrochemicals and services. Others are pharmaceuticals, iron and steel products, automotive and vehicles, industrial salt, machines and machine components, industrial starch and sugar.
Theodore Kofi Markham, team leader for the NEDS, said pillar three of the strategy would be implemented through a vigorous practical human capital development programme of the Ghana Export School, which would be decentralised to the regions and districts to enable the participation of adequate number of educated young men and women and people with disabilities to be empowered to become astute export businessmen and women to drive the national export effort.
He said an amount of $609 million would be needed to implement the strategy over the 10-year period.
BY Samuel Boadi