Enhanced trade data for export promotion
Kumasi (Ashanti Region) 02 October 2002- Mr
Kwaku Adu-Mensah, General Manager of the Ghana Export Promotion Council (GEPC),
has said the government's recognition of the need to transform trade data
processes for GEPC to enable it to establish Ghana's Trade Information System
was laudable.
He said this would enable the GEPC to collect
and disseminate trade information at the national level and inform producers,
intermediary distributors and end-users.
Mr Adu-Mensah was speaking at the opening of a
five-day export trade training programme for exporters, importers and other
stakeholders in the export trade in Kumasi on Monday.
The programme, the first to be organized, by
the GEPC in collaboration with the Ashanti Regional Coordinating Council (RCC)
was aimed at creating capacity for an advanced export marketing management for
personnel of export companies and export facilitating institutions.
He noted that the export training capacity in
the country had remained largely at the foundation level. However, the present
world trade concept requires rapid transmission of trade data to enable
business managers take advantage of market opportunities.
Mr Adu-Mensah said Ghanaian exporters required
up to date trade data to enable them to formulate effective marketing
strategies adding that export enterprises also needed to be trained in
effective utilization of trade information in business.
He said a number of entrepreneurs were seeking
foreign partners and would need training in subjects related to export-oriented
joint ventures.
There are also important human resource
development needs among organisations offering support services to exporters,
Mr Adu-Mensah said, and named some of them as the export Finance Company, the
Ghana Standard Board (GSB) Custom, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) the
Ghana Trade Fair Company.
These organisations, he said, were required to
meet the increasing demands from exporters including specialized training of
their own staff.
According to him the over all objective is to
upgrade the trade information services of GEPC and link it to the Association
of Ghana Industries (AGI), Ghana National Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the
Ministry of Trade and Industry and the Federation of Association of Ghanaian
Exporters.
Mr Adu-Mensah said within the next few months
GEPC's actions will create various opportunities for the expansion of the supply
bases and markets within the sub-region.
Mrs Rose Owusu-Ansah, Chief Economic Planning
Officer, at the Ashanti Regional Coordinating Council, noted that the seminar
was relevant to the country's contemporary situation because in recent times,
the issue of human resource development had featured prominently on the agenda
of exports.
Ghana has, for instance, established a
ministerial portfolio to oversee the realisation of the objective of promoting
trade and investment among West African States. She said without sustainable
human resource capacity building, efforts at expanding market and ensuring the
objectives of macro-economic policies would be fruitless.
GRi…/
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