The Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA) has initiated a partnership agreement with the Ghana-India Trade Advisory Chamber (GITAC) to attract Indian investors with expertise in manufacturing and processing to enhance value addition for export.
Chief Executive Officer of GEPA, Dr. Afua Asabea Asare, emphasised the need for such a partnership between the two countries – noting that India has the market, technologies, funding and technical know-how, while Ghana on the other hand is rich in natural resources which must be processed into finished products before export.
“Having looked at objectives of the Chamber – which are to facilitate, build and nurture mutually beneficial relationships between Ghana and India in the promotion and enhancement of trade, investment and cultural interactions between the two countries, I am committed to collaborate with GITAC in a move to achieve this laudable objective,” she said.
She further indicated that the country’s Non-Traditional Export (NTE) value in 2019 stood at US$2.9billion while that of the previous year was even less, a value that is significantly low; hence, the authority is determined to grow this value to a targetted US$25billion by 2029 – and it will require the technical know-how, huge financial investment and technologies of a country like India to achieve the stipulated target.
“Ghana’s Non-Traditional Export to India in 2019 covered a wide range of products including cashew nuts, oil seeds, cocoa paste, natural rock sheets and soya beans. Most of these products are currently exported to India as raw materials, and this is not in our best interests. We are determined to change the narrative. Therefore, in line with government policy and key strategies, we have embarked on an aggressive plan to significantly add value to these commodities before exporting them,” she said.
Dr. Asare, made these remarks in her address at the GITAC Business Summit that brought together both local and international business-minded individuals and institutions to access import and export information as well as network with sector players.
GEPA, she said, is of the notion that the days of exporting the country’s natural resources in their raw form is over, as government is looking for investors capable of establishing processing factories and assembling plants to take advantage of the One District, One Factory (1D1F), Planting for Food and Job (PFJ), among other initiatives to add value to the country’s raw materials.
President of GITAC, Dominic Oduro, expressed the Chamber’s commitment to such a partnership, reiterating that such initiatives will lead to transforming the Ghanaian economy and relating it to that of India and the over-15 other countries where the advisory chamber operates.
Senior Minister and Chairman of Occasion, Yaw Osafo Maafo, reiterated the long-standing relationship between Ghana and India dating back to Independence, and urged the Indian Ambassador to Ghana as well as GITAC to drive more Indian investors into the manufacturing sector, assuring them of government’s support in creating an enabling environment to ensure that foreign investors and the private sector thrive.
