Television set imports skyrocket

The number of television (TV) sets imported into the country over the past three years reached about 3.2 million as at the end of June this year, B&FT has gathered.

Data on TV-set importation into the country is scanty, but the Ministry of Trade and Industry reports that 3,187,339 TV sets were imported into the country from January 2007 to June 2010. For the first six months of this year, about 1.2 million TV sets were imported into the country, which exceeds the annual figures for all the other years.

However, the value of the imports for the first half of this year is less than the value of imports for 2009 - raising concerns that other countries may be using Ghana as a dumping ground for their disposed TV sets. The value of the TV imports for the first six months of the year was GH¢25 million, compared to the GH¢38 million recorded for last year.

It is not yet known why the value of TV sets imported into the country for last year is higher than what has been recorded for the first six months of this year - even though the volume of imports for the first half of the year is bigger than what was recorded for 2009. However, industry players have credited this to a reduction in the cost of TV sets or an indication of a high number of used TV sets which tend to be very cheap.

“If the latter scenario is the case, then the dumping of analogue TV sets due to digital switchover in many developed countries may have already started,” stated the National Digital Broadcasting Migration Technical Committee.

The International Telecommunication Union has set June 2015 as the deadline for all countries to switch over from the analogue broadcasting system to a digital broadcasting arena - and it is feared developed countries may dump their analogue TV receivers in developing countries such as Ghana.

The United States of America (USA) switched off analogue TV in June this year. The United Kingdom is on course to switch off analogue TV by 2010. South Africa has set a target date of 2011.

“But the primary environmental concern is to guard against the dumping (importation) of old analogue TV sets and transmitters from Europe into Ghana,” said an industry analyst who has requested to remain anonymous. Imports of Television sets into Ghana (Data provided by Ministry of Trade and Industry)