Non-traditional exports rake in US$2.9 billion in 2019

Earnings from Ghana’s non-traditional exports (NTE) increased from US$2.813 billion in 2018 to US$2.899 billion in 2019, an increase of 3.1%, highlights of the Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA) 2019 report show.

Overall, national exports grew by 8.53% over 2018, with a slower rate of growth for NTE over the same period.

According to highlights of the 2019 report presented by Samuel Dentu, deputy chief executive officer in charge of operations and finance at GEPA, the top ten products which contributed 57% of NTE earnings were from the manufacturing sector.

The report shows that the processed and semi-processed sector, particularly cocoa products, were the main drivers of the increased earnings, contributing over US$800 million.

“The manufacturing sector, with products like cocoa cake, cocoa butter, cocoa paste, canned tuna, articles of plastics, iron and steel products, continues to be the highest contributor, improving its growth rate by 11.15% compared to 2018,” says the report.

However: “Of significant notice was a 37% drop in cashew earnings in the agric sector. A 37% drop in cashew’s contribution drove a significant decrease in the agricultural sector’s contribution to 2019’s performance.”

The report adds, “The agric sector contributed $430 million in 2019 as against 2018’s earnings of $591 million. Cashew was affected mainly by its low demand at the beginning of the season.”

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The 2019 NTE Statistics Report also highlights an interesting growth in earnings from oil palm products of more than $112 million, representing a more than 5,000% increase over the figure for 2018.

The report attributes this growth to bigger markets in the sub-region and increased use of the ECOWAS trade liberalisation scheme.

One area to which GEPA will attach keen importance is “services export”, which drives large volumes of foreign currency into Ghana.

The anticipated areas of growth are higher education, medical services, information technology and IT-enabled services as well as professional services to the sub-region and Africa.

Data-based

Launching the GEPA report at Danyame in the Ashanti Region, Afua Asabea Asare, chief executive officer of GEPA, said access to reliable data on international trade flows would remain vital to the Authority making informed decisions.

Robert Ahomka-Lindsay, Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, said increased exports will require Ghanaian producers to add value to raw materials, thereby boosting the revenues coming in from non-traditional exports.

“As part of our ten-year strategy, we’ll be processing more cashew,” said Ahomka-Lindsay. “Once we grow more, we’ll process it because we understand the value of the cashew business. We don’t want to [just] sell the beans.”

The board chairman of GEPA, Sandy Osei-Agyeman, who was also at the launch event encouraged Ghanaians to adopt “the multiplier effect”, whereby every Ghanaian judiciously consumes “Made in Ghana” products.

“Just like the Jews, Lebanese, the Indians, love to buy from each other, we in Ghana should support what we do here by buying from one another. We have to consume what we make here and we can export the rest so we’ll keep the money in Ghana.”

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