Add more value to products

Daily Graphic (spread)Sat., July 3/10

Story: Rebecca Quaicoe-Duho
THE Assistant United States Trade Representative for Africa, Ms Florizelle Liser, has cautioned Ghana against neglecting its diverse economic background to concentrate only on developing the oil sector.
She, therefore, advised the government to ensure an increase in value added products for exports and not depend solely on the country’s oil as some countries had done to the detriment of their economies.
Ms Liser, who gave the advice at the sixth council meeting of the Ghana-US Trade Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) in Accra yesterday, said the country’s diverse economy such as agribusiness should be explored further for the total development of the country.
Ghana and the United States of America signed TIFA in 1999 and have since held bilateral discussions to operationalise the agreement.
Represented by a 17-member delegation from the US, the meeting was for the two countries to deepen their trade and investment relations, among other issues.
The meeting covered issues on bilateral trade relations, investment climate, transportation, infrastructure, trade, capacity building and technical assistance.
Ghana was represented by a 26-member inter-ministerial team and led by the Minister of Trade and Industry, Mrs Hanna Tetteh.
Ms Liser called on the government of Ghana to ponder over the issue of how resources from the oil sector could be used effectively to support other sectors of the economy including farming.
According to her many countries where oil was being explored had solely relied on the oil business to the neglect of other sectors, a situation which she said had brought a lot of untold hardships to their people.
She bemoaned the fact that although Africa was home to many resources, it contributed to just three per cent of world trade, a situation which she said was “unbelievable”.
She said the only way to change the situation was to add value to raw materials from the region, saying although most of the raw materials were from Africa, value was only added to them when they were exported to other continents.
Ms Liser said the USA was ready to work with Ghana to help it add value to its raw materials, especially agricultural products, and called on the government to come up with sector-specific plans that could help in the country’s development.
Mrs Hanna Tetteh for her part said the government was working at ensuring that other sectors of the economy were equally developed, saying her ministry was in the process of reviewing the Ghana Investment Promotion Act to improve on it to face current challenges.
She added that in the next five years the non-oil sector of the country’s economy would be given continuous attention to ensure that it was not neglected.
According to her, it is the vision of the government that the country will be competitive in all spheres and not be in oil only.
She, however, said the major challenge currently confronting the country was infrastructure, saying the infrastructural needs of the country needed to be improved for accelerated growth of the economy.
She said special attention would be given to agricultural production to help boost productivity, as well as add value to agricultural products for export.
The US Ambassador to Ghana, Mr Donald Teitelbaum, in an address said although Ghana was not particularly food insecure, the country would be in a better position to help solve some of the food crises on the continent.
He said Ghana was an excellent designation for business and the USA was ready through its team of experts to help the country become the “bread basket” of Africa to increase food security on the continent.
He added that when well managed, the country could become the hub of business in Africa.