Madam Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, has reiterated the need for the business community to add value to their export commodities.
According to her, adding value to raw materials coupled with Government’s vision of industrialising the nation from consumption to production would fast-track economic development.
”It is sad that most of the cocoa we produce here go out in its raw form, which they use to produce chocolate, chocolate drinks and other finished products and subsequently export them back to us,” she said.
Madam Botchwey made the remarks at the opening ceremony of the Economic Trade and Investment Bureau and First Stakeholders’ Conference, organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration.
The two-day event is on the theme: ‘‘The New Dynamics of Economic Diplomacy: Trade, Culture and Tourism Potentials of Ghana’’.
The event brought together heads of department, captains of industry, the diplomatic community, entrepreneurs and business men and women, to deliberate on strategies to enhance trade and investment in the country.
Madam Botchwey indicated that Government’s strategy was to add value to the country’s export commodities and trade among the 15 ECOWAS countries as well as take advantage of the continental free trade, saying; ”Ghana must show leadership in that regard.”
Government, she said is looking at both internal and external strategies to reform the economy and market its goods and services.
She expressed the belief that the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), with a population of 350 million, could provide that leverage to accomplish its objectives.
”As a nation one of our strategies is to capture the ECOWAS market to sell our goods and services because we cannot just look at the 27 million population of Ghana but look beyond,” she said.
Source: otecfmghana.com
