The maiden edition of the Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA) School has been held in Kumasi in the Ashanti Region with a call on exporters to collaborate and take advantage of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
“It is not about competition,” said a deputy chief executive officer of GEPA, Albert Kassim Diwura. “This time, it is about collaboration and networking, because the world needs a lot of products, and one person might not provide it all.
“The entire country wants to succeed in the AfCFTA; therefore, we need to collaborate among ourselves to push our goods out there,” he said.
Touching on the Export School, Diwura observed that, over the years, exports from Ghana have not been able to meet the demand.
“We seek to build the capacity of exporters because it’s a global trade. You don’t sit in Ghana and expect you will be able to compete favourably with the rest of the world with the knowledge that you have.
”And so, we work with the International Trade Centre (ITC) and other institutions to make sure that we bring the knowledge of exporters up to speed so they’re able to compete favourably with their competitors around the world.”
Visa challenges
The deputy commander of the Ghana Immigration Service in the Ashanti Region, Assistant Commissioner of Immigration (ACI) Constance Boateng, said that the Ghana Immigration Service is always ready to assist exporters to get any travel papers they need and other documents they might require, without the intervention of middlemen.
“Our offices are open 24/7. If you come to us, we will facilitate the process for you: [we explain] how and what you need before you will qualify to get a Ghanaian passport. Also, how to get a visa is a challenge.
“Most times, these fraudsters dupe you: they give you fake passports, fake visas … We receive these complaints a lot. We verify the visas and we realise they are all fake.”
ACI Boateng advised exporters always to engage the services of the Immigration Service to prepare their travel documentation.
Spearheaded by GEPA, the export school was organised in collaboration with the International Trade Centre.
One participant in the workshop, Gabriel Abitey, described it as timely, adding that it will help him expand and promote his products. He is the chief executive officer of a company called Sapient Organics.
“This programme is what we need, because we need networking, we need expansion of our market, further education and funds.
“We intend to join similar activities that will happen [in the future]. So, this is not our last. There are several more we will be attending,” Abitey said.
Jonathan Ofori
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