We Won't Sign Bogus Trade Pacts

The Minister of Trade and Industry, Ms Hannah Tetteh (left), addressing the press. With her is the Minister of Information, Mrs Zita Okaikoi.

The government has stated that it will not sign any partnership agreement that will liberalise the country’s trade regime to its detriment.

Making reference to the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union (EU), the Minister of Trade and Industry, Ms Hannah Tetteh, said the government would not sacrifice the interest of the nation in the agreement.

She gave the assurance when her ministry took its turn at the “Meet-The-Press” series in Accra yesterday, during which she outlined the programmes and projects it was undertaking.

The EPA is a new preferential trading agreement between the EU and the various regional blocs of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group, whose agreement allows ACP countries to have duty-free and quota-free access to the EU market.

The need for the EPA follows the end in 2007 of the Cotonou Partnership Agreement, which governed the preferential trade agreements between the two groups, but the non-reciprocal agreement was blacklisted by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) as non-compliant.

Since 2002, when negotiations on the EPA between the EU and the ACP began, it has been the subject of intense debate in Ghana.

Many advocacy groups, such as the Third World Network (TWN), ISODEC and the Ghana Trades Union Congress (TUC), have waged a vigorous anti-EPA campaign, cautioning the government against signing the agreement because it would be detrimental to the nation’s interest and, as they put it, “the devil is in the detail” of the agreement.

However, the government, having weighed the pros and cons of the agreement, went ahead to sign the Interim EPA (IEPA) with the EU in December 2007, allowing Ghana to have access to the EU market for a five-year period, beginning January 1, 2008, after which the country will be obliged to eliminate duties on 80 per cent of its imports from the EU over a 15-year period.

Devoting a substantial portion of her 41-minute address on the subject, Ms Tetteh said the signing of the IEPA had been beneficial to Ghana in terms of getting access to the EU Market.

“Not having access would have caused difficulty to the horticultural sector, the cocoa processing sector, canned fish and processed food products,” she observed.

The minister said in order to mitigate the impact that the EPA might have on the nation, there were discussions to tie the signing of the agreement with development programmes.

Ms Tetteh said negotiations were ongoing between the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the EU for the establishment of a free trade zone between ECOWAS and the EU, a development programme and a ‘trade-in-goods’ agreement which was expected to be concluded in October 2009.

She said her ministry had developed a consumer protection policy to protect the welfare of consumers, expressing the hope that “we will have had the policy approved by Cabinet shortly and we will then embark on an extensive programme of public education to inform producers, manufacturers and importers of their obligations to consumers”.

Ms Tetteh said under a $105-million micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) project inherited from the previous administration, a web-based product gallery was being developed to promote made-in-Ghana products and provide opportunities for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to promote and market their products on the Internet.

She also spoke about plans to establish an ICT Park in the Tema Free Zones Enclave, the first of its kind in the country, to provide infrastructure and business support services to help develop and maximise the potential of small and medium ICT businesses.

She said her ministry was in the process of establishing a Tariff Advisory Board (TAB) which would eventually be developed into an International Trade Commission (ITC), with the mandate of ensuring that tariffs were set in accordance with national economic development priorities.

Ms Tetteh said the government was reviewing the operations of the Export Development and Investment Fund (EDIF) with the view to making it more responsive to the needs of export-oriented businesses.

She said since 2002, the fund had provided GH¢125,937,983 in loans and grants to producers and marketers of export goods and services, but she pointed out that the problem with the fund “has been the lack of interest on the part of the banks to on-lend the fund that has a concessionary interest rate to participants in the sector”.

She said her ministry was in the process of developing a national industrial policy, explaining that although there were various policies and strategies on the sector, “the revival of the industrial sector is key to our ability to develop a competitive manufacturing base”.

Commenting on the President’s Special Initiatives (PSIs) on salt, cassava, oil palm and garment, all pioneered by the previous administration, the minister said apart from the cassava initiative, the rest were all ongoing.

She said the government was considering how best to re-start the cassava initiative, in view of the challenges it faced, particularly the lack of market for the produce, which made cassava farmers disillusioned.