Mr. Eric Kweku Hammond, a Deputy Director, Foreign Banking Operations of the Bank of Ghana, has called on exporters in the country to embrace the use of the Bank of Ghana’s Letter of Commitment (LOC) document to help facilitate their export business.

According to the Deputy Director, the Letter of Commitment has come to stay because it is a standardised document, and as such, all exporters are supposed to use it to export their merchandise commodities from Ghana.

“No exporter would be able to export without the use of the LOC and therefore, every exporter must embrace it.”
Eric Kweku Hammond

Mr Hammond made the call on the sidelines of a seminar for importers, exporters, bankers and other stakeholders on international trade in Upper West Region, on the Letter of Commitment (LOC) document.

The seminar was aimed at helping to address challenges posed by the implementation of the LOC for the repatriation of export proceeds to businesses.

Mr Hammond noted that following the introduction of the LOC for the repatriation of export proceeds in 2016, the Central Bank received several complaints from exporters and some customs house agents on the challenges its implementation was having on their export businesses hence the need to organise the seminar to help educate them on the usefulness of its usage.

Requirements for Export

The Deputy Director explained that before an exporter exports, some documents have to be processed before the goods are allowed to leave the shores of Ghana and the LOC is one of them. The LOC, he said, would help the BOG to monitor all exports leaving the shores of Ghana and enable the bank to repatriate the exports’ proceeds into the country.

Mr Hammond noted that the Bank of Ghana needed foreign exchange from these exports of commodities to help build its reserves and pay for imports as well as develop the infrastructural base of the country.

Mr Hammond lamented about the fact that statistics has proven that about 90 per cent of commodities consumed in the country are imported.

“We pay for them from proceeds from the export exchange. If we don’t do something about the repatriation of foreign exchange earnings, we will not be able to build up our reserves to support our local economies and get the needed foreign exchange to embark on our socio-economic development by way of the infrastructure of the country.”
Eric Kweku Hammond

Mr Hammond stated that the Bank of Ghana aimed to achieve repatriation of export proceeds to enable it to realise its micro economy as a Central Bank.

“It is for this reason that the Bank of Ghana is collaborating with the Ghana Shippers Authority to educate importers and exporters on the LOC to enable them to use the document effectively and make the export business easy for all of them.”
Eric Kweku Hammond