22nd Export Achievers awards held

HE 2011 National Awards for Export Achievement has been held in Accra under the theme, “Providing Sustainable Motivation for Export Excellence”.

The Awards scheme was instituted in 1989 by the Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA) in line with government efforts to stimulate growth on non-traditional exports (NTEs) and to cushion the volatility of earnings from traditional exports.

The awards which was the 22nd in the series had five categories going to players in the NTEs.

They were special honorary awards; platinum; silver; gold; most delivered; export services; woman exporter of the year and exporter of the year.

Interplast Limited, producers of PV pipes and other plastics received the exporter of the year award, while Mrs Margaret Tweneboa-Boateng of Excel Industries Ltd, an aluminium household utensils manufacturer, emerged the woman exporter of the year.

The platinum award went to Cocoa Processing Company Limited while Ernimich Limited, a food processing company was given the Most Diversified award.

Gold award winners include Azar Chemical Industries Limited (household paint), Logs & Lumber Ltd (builders’ woodwork, Kumasi), PZ Cussons Limited (soaps), Ghana Nuts Company Ltd (shea (Karate) oil, Techiman) and Pinora Limited (fruit concentrate, orange, Asamankese), among others.

Special honorary awards went to Dayash Ventures, Craftman Studios, Chocho Industries Limited, Naasakle Limited, Ebenut Ghana and Integrated Tamale Fruit Company.

Some silver award winners were, Kinapharma Limited, Jei River farms, Ruker Ventures, K. Laast Company Limited and Dhillon Farms International, and others.

Other objectives are to formally recognise the contribution of exporters in the NTE sector to economic prosperity of Ghana, to encourage higher levels of performance by exporters and to raise export consciousness among Ghanaians in general.

Since its inception, over 700 export companies and facilitating institutions have received recognition under the awards scheme.

A speech read on behalf of the Vice President Mr Kwesi Amissah Arthur by Mr Stephen Amoanor Quao assured that government will not relegate the NTE in the background but develop and promote it to make it globally competitive.

“One of the means would be to support the NTE sector directly with a percentage of oil revenue. I therefore urge stakeholders in the export sector, especially the GEPA to take immediate steps to begin the branding process of our major NTE products and services”.

The Minister of Trade and Industry, Ms Hannah Tetteh in a speech read on her behalf by Nana Kwadwo Adantwi announced that government was committing US$500 million out of the US$3 billion loan from the China Development Bank to expand the Takoradi and Tema Ports and rehabilitate the western railway line.

This is one of the strategies to build and expand existing trade infrastructure to facilitate movement of our exports through the country.

“The reasons for the rapid depreciation of the cedis is our over reliance on imports and our inability to balance that with exports. To offset this, government has initiated programmes to engender a very conducive environment for the exports of non-traditional goods and services”.

He said Ghana’s market share of the regional market was just US$655 million and challenged stakeholders in the sector to move it to US$1 billion by 2014.

He urged all exporters to take advantage of the solo exhibitions and all other exhibitions to increase their market reach and enhance Ghana’s market share in the sub-region.

The acting Chief Executive of the GEPA, Mr Stephen Normeshie said the authority had undertaken a number of activities to support and sustain the growth of the export sector.

The NTE sector in 2011 contributed US$2.423 billion to Ghana’s economy, an increase of 48.74% in value over 2010n earnings.

He said that through the TradeCom Facility under an ACP-EU Commission, the GEPA implemented a programme to identify key markets for selected Ghanaian products in the EU and ECOWAS sub-region.

“I am happy to report that through the programme, some Ghanaian producers / exporters in the agriculture and manufacture sectors have been linked with buyers in Germany, Liberia and Mali”.

In furtherance of this, he said the GEPA had introduced a pilot traceability project and so far about 36 companies have been mapped and the information on their processes have been transferred to the digital map of Ghana. The information is currently linked to the GEPA database.



http://www.graphic.com.gh/dailygraphic/index.php