The Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA) and Export Barbados, the Barbados Investment & Development Corporation, has entered a partnership agreement targetted at increasing bilateral trade to at least US$3.6million by 2025.
The collaboration comes on the back of an initiative championed by Export Barbados to change the current US$3,000 value of imports and US$36,000 exports between the two countries.
Chief Executive Officer of Export Barbados, Mark Hill, speaking at an event to formally outdoor the partnership, said the two countries share a common ancestry and consumptions in both countries are the same – hence the need to forge strong trade partnerships with each capitalising on its competitive advantage.
He emphasised that trade collaboration is important for the economic development of every country, because it is mutually beneficial to all parties and facilitates the exchange of investment-related information, goods & services, human resources and expertise, among others.
“We need to grow together, develop an ecosystem that enables exchange and balanced trade between the two economies. Barbados has a competitive advantage in three areas that we seek to promote in our partnership with Ghana. The first is what we have termed bio-economy: this includes developments from resources like the sciences, technology, medical technology, pharmaceutical, etc.
The second area in consideration is the design-economy, wherein Ghanaian designers and artists get to penetrate and collaborate with Barbados creative arts to promote tourism and cash-in on that economy. Third is the oceans-ecological zone: we have noticed that plastic waste and its management is a huge challenge in Ghana,” he said.
He added that Barbados offers Ghana an opportunity to connect to the Caribbean for commercial benefits in sectors such as tourism, medicine and even entertainment.
On his part, the president of GUTA, Dr. Joseph Obeng, stated it is very unfortunate that trade volumes between the two countries have been very abysmal over the past years. He expressed that there are enormous trade and investment opportunities in Barbados which member unions of the association must take advantage of – courtesy of the partnership – to grow their businesses.
On a lighter note, the GUTA president indicated that beyond the legal requirements and documentary assistance, investment advice, flight arrangements and other key requirements the partnership will provide to businesses, it could also be a good opportunity to find life-partners or inter-marry since history traces the Barbadians to Ghana and Africa.
“This collaboration is a call to action for us the traders to identify items we can trade in with competitive advantage. I was surprised when I heard that China is packing and exporting shea-butter, gari and other commodities we have in abundance here in the Caribbean. This is unacceptable and we cannot allow this to continue; we have to double and triple trade volumes and values between these two countries,” he said.
According to Dr. Obeng, a memorandum of understanding will be signed in August this year between the two parties in Barbados, which will help to identify and explore the investment opportunities in both countries.
“Ghana, Barbados are the same people – and so whatever we have and use here they use the same, and therefore present a market for whatever we have here,” he added.
Connectivity has been identified as one of the key limitations to trade between the two countries, and both countries are also working on arrangements to enable direct flights from Accra to Barbados and vice versa.
