Minister for Trade and Industry, Alan Kyeremanten has revealed the need for Ghana to embrace wholly the prospects in being tagged as an exporting country.
Emphasizing the need for the country to be recognized as an export market, Mr. Kyeremanten enjoined the need for the provision of a much bigger market for export.
“To be able to export you need markets, and although I will say a domestic market of almost 30 million people is not exactly a small market size, but we know for Ghana to become a major exporting country, we need bigger markets and that is why the AfCFTA provides an excellent opportunity for us to realize our vision of becoming a major exporting country”.
Speaking at the 2nd National Conference on the African Continental Free Trade Area, held on Tuesday, 20th October 2020, at the Accra International Conference Centre, on the theme: “Empowering Ghanaian businesses to harness the benefits of the AfCFTA under the framework of the National Export Development Strategy (NEDS)”, Alan Kyeremanten highlighted the essence of Ghana attaining an export-oriented economy by underscoring the need for exporting more of value added export product.
“In order for us to take advantage of AfCFTA, Ghana needs to diversify [its] export base. We can no longer continue to export only cocoa and gold and become an export led economy.
“At the core of our national export development strategy, it is the message of focusing on non-traditional exports”.
The benefits of AfCFTA, according to the Trade Minister, do not accrue automatically to African countries and as such, “for any country to take advantage of the AfCFTA market that country needs to be able to produce”.
“And this underpins why His Excellency the president since assuming office in 2017, has been preaching this message of value addition and production and enhancing productivity”.
“We have an opportunity to understand and appreciate the elements of the National Exports Development Strategy as an umbrella framework for developing and promoting exports”.
On his part, President Akufo-Addo addressing the gathering, intimated that government is fully committed to the implementation of the AfCFTA.
“With the collective desire for shared prosperity, we are confident that the AfCFTA will succeed and generate a new impetus in dynamism for the rapid growth of Africa’s economies and deepen the process of integration and unification in Africa.
“Empowered Ghanaian enterprises, should be frontline actors of this new, exciting journey in Africa’s economic history. We owe it to generations unborn to ensure the biggest trading bloc on the globe whose outcomes will be rewarding to all African”.
According to the president, the realizing of the vision, “can be sooner attained if we leverage the trading investment prospects the AfCFTA presents”.
“Additionally, the National Export Development Strategy, serves an appropriate policy framework for coordinating and consolidating public sector support for the development of exports.
“Ghana like other African countries is blessed with abundance of resources, however over the years, we have not been able to translate our resource wealth into the much needed growth and development we desire; leaving our economy still in a fragile and unfulfilled state”.
