Blanket trade liberalization undermines industry growth - Forum

Wa, Oct. 5, GNA - Speakers at a forum on the advantages and effects of the Government's trade liberalization policy held at Wa on Wednesday were highly critical of the policy, saying it was undermining the growth of indigenous industries.

They held that the Ghanaian economy is vulnerable and therefore deserves some measure of protection against unfair competition from industrialized countries, which dump their subsidized products on the local market, thereby undercutting local manufacturers.

The speakers made this view at a forum organized by the Ghana Trade and Livelihoods Coalition, a network of non-governmental organisations, to create awareness and generate debate on the implications of the economic partnership agreements members of the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific countries (ACP) will be signing with the European Union. They said ACP countries were badly lagging behind European countries at all levels of economic and industrial development and that common sense suggests that the EU countries stand to gain more at the disadvantage of the ACP countries.

They also noted that while EU countries determine the prices of their exports, they also dictate how much they should pay for exports from ACP countries, in addition to the heavy tariffs slapped by them on such exports.

Sadly, they noted, the European countries deliberately set very high standards which the developing countries find difficult to meet, in order to control the penetration of goods from the ACP countries, thereby denying them access into their markets.

Mr Paul Nkegbe, a lecturer at the Wa campus of the University for Development Studies (UDS), said over the past five years the world market prices for primary products like cocoa, cotton and coffee have fallen by 30 to 40 percent thereby, affecting the earnings of producer countries and livelihoods of their farmers.

Mr Emmanuel Yenube Kpari, a Senior Research Assistant at UDS, said records indicated that the price of sugar, rice, canned tomato and pork related products imported by Ghana had risen by 500 percent. Other contributors called on the government to be bold in rejecting any foreign assistance with conditions likely to undermine the growth of the economy.