The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA), Dr. Afua Asabea Asare, has stated that the authority is poised to achieve its over $4 billion target for Non-Traditional Exports (NTEs) for the country.
NTEs are defined by the GEPA as all products other than cocoa beans, logs and lumber, unprocessed gold, and other minerals and electricity.
These include horticultural products, fish and seafood, prepared food and beverages, handicrafts and other manufactured items.
Speaking in an interview with Bernard Avle, Dr. Asare said that though Ghana was garnering around $3.8 billion every year in addition to about $8 billion for trade-in services for 2022, it was not going to relent in achieving its over $4 billion target per annum.
“Our target is about $ 4.6 billion a year and so far we are around $3.8 billion a year without adding the trade in services. We have been very keen on growing the trade in services and so for some time now we have been trying to measure that and since we haven’t gotten to where we think it is adequate to add to the NTE statistics we have not done so.”
“But last year, 2022, we got about 8 billion alone in trade in services so we think this is significant. if we should add that to the 3.8 billion, we should be getting somewhere. But we are not complacent we really want to achieve the target minus the services for about 4.4 billion every year,” she stated.