President Kufuor Defends His Foreign Trips

President Kufuor has replied critics of his foreign trips that ? it?s not just Kufuor in Ghana or Obasanjo in Nigeria. If you look elsewhere, everybody is traveling, even in the big countries. That is the demand of the times. People have been talking but I?m sure that in due course, they will get to see that it?s all part of the office ? that the President should be traveling. It?s not just one President doing it. It?s all the President?s doing it and it?s to promote the well-being of the countries?. These sentiments were expressed by the President in an interview with the London-based West Africa magazine.

The President noted for example that during his recent trip to Germany, he held discussions with the authorities regarding the imbalance between the two countries. While Ghana?s exports to Germany is worth $80 million a year, the Germans sell $400 million worth of goods annually. Kufuor wants this redressed through adding value to Ghanaian raw materials that are exported. He admitted that a short-term programme could not redress the trade balance. ?The problem is a structural one?.

According to him, Ghana continues to export raw materials but as a matter of policy, the government wants to move away from this situation. ?If you take cocoa, we want to increase the percentage of processing. As it is now, we process just about 18% of the commodity in Ghana. When you process, you add so much value, which is reflected on your export earnings and would affect the balance of trade positively. So we want to catch up on processing. That?s the way, perhaps we can redress the balance between us and the advanced countries like Germany?.

He said although countries like Cote d?Ivoire, Malaysia and Brazil add value to their raw materials, Ghana does not have the capacity to add value to its raw material to provide quality processed products on the international market. Government is determined to change the situation by taking advantage of joint ventures with foreign partners ?to enable us to put capacity in place to add quality to our exports.?