The Deputy Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA), Mr Akilu Sayibu, has completed a 10-day working visit to the zonal offices of GEPA in the three northern regions.
He also visited the political and administrative authorities in the zones to discuss areas of collaboration and how GEPA’s services could improve Ghana’s trade and agenda for job creation.
Those he interacted with included regional ministers and their deputies, municipal chief executives and Regional Coordinating Councils (RCCs).
Purpose
The visit offered the deputy CEO the opportunity to know at first-hand some of the challenges staff of GEPA and producers faced in their operations, as well as share with them the strategies in place to promote Ghana’s non-traditional export (NTE) products, including those from the northern sector for increased exports.
The move, the GEPA explained, was part of efforts to focus on the production base of export products so as to increase the number and value of the country’s NTEs.
Export of non-traditional products has stagnated at an average of $2.5 billion in recent years in spite of the launch of the National Export Strategy to increase receipts from the sector to $5 billion in 2020.
However, the current leadership of the GEPA has given themselves a more ambitious outlook of NTE proceeds to the regions of $10 billion in the medium term.
Assurances
Mr Sayibu also met exporters and potential ones and assured them of the authority’s support in the production and marketing of their export products.
Mr Sayibu also visited the Bolga Crafts Village and Smock Market and educated the producers on the services of the GEPA and how they could improve on their products for the export market.
The exporters appealed to GEPA to include them in trade fairs and other events organised by the authority.
The deputy CEO also stressed the need for them to be professional in their work in order to be competitive.
Responding to requests by the Upper West RCC for the GEPA to open an office in the region, Mr Sayibu welcomed the appeal and said it was one of the initiatives the CEO of GEPA, Mrs Gifty Kekeli Klenam, was vigorously pursuing.
While assuring them of progress reports, the deputy CEO, however, asked them to make an office space available in preparation for the request.
Mr Sayibu assured them of the willingness of the government, led by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, to support them to develop and promote exports to bring in the necessary foreign exchange to improve the macroeconomic conditions of the country.