The Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA), in collaboration with the Ministry of Trade and Industry, yesterday launched the 2021 Non-Traditional Export (NTE) statistics report.
The 55-page book would enable the government analyse and evaluate the impact that the National Export Development Strategy (NEDS) was making on the overall export development agenda.
It is also intended to help main stream the NEDS and export agenda into the overall global industrial transformation agenda.
The short ceremony took place at the Ministry of Information in Accra.
Present at the launch were the Chief Executive Officer of GEPA, Dr. Afua Asabea Asare, the Minister of Information, Mr. Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, the Deputy Minister of Information, Fatimatu Abubakar, the Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr. Herbert Krapa, and other players in the export and trade sector.
Addressing the audience, Dr. Afua Asabea noted that despite the difficulties that Covid-19 posed, Ghana had witnessed a significant increase in NTE earnings, from $2.846 billion in 2020 to $3.330 billion in 2021.
She indicated that the highest contributing sector out of the three main sectors, namely Agribusiness, Processed/ Semi-Processed and Industrial Art and Craft, was the Processed/Semi-Processed sector.
She noted that the Processed/Simi-Processed sector accounted for 84.35% of the total NTE.
The second sector, the Agribusiness sub sector, also accounted for 14.29%, while the Industrial Art and Craft contributed 1.35%.
She also observed that the report identifies cocoa paste, cocoa butter, cashew nut, articles and plastics, canned tuna, iron/steel circles/ rods/sheets/ billets, natural rubber sheets, refined palm oil, cocoa powder and aluminum plates as the top ten leading NTE products.
Dr. Asabea noted that this analysis enables the government to through GEPA know which sector, as well as product, to channel more of its resources into production.
She also intimated that the report would help traders and business to make investments that would yield good returns, which would in turn boost their confidence in the economy.
Aside Ghanaians, Dr. Asabea noted that the report would guide foreigners who would invest in the economy on which areas they could invest and make profit.
She expressed her appreciating to the hard working team at the authority for putting together such a report, and advised Ghanaians to make time and peruse it.
The Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr. Krapa, on his part, said that the launch of the report was very important to his Ministry, because the government had a vision of moving Ghana’s NTE earnings from 2.8 billion to 25 billion in a decade.
Mr. Kraper noted that in order to achieve such a target, the country had to continually assess itself and look out for where it could channel more of its resources, and that could only be done based on the report, hence, the importance his Ministry had attached to it.
He again noted that the report would enable the Ministry to further deepen institutional collaborations.
He explained that GEPA and the Trade Ministry alone could not achieve the export target that Ghana had set for itself, but would need the collaboration of other ministries and institutions to come on board.
“The launch of this report we believe allows us to come to the table again to access the level of participation and the collaboration between these agencies and how we will further deepen the collaboration.”
