Ghana's trade with Canada is poor - Deputy Minister

Accra, April 26, GNA - Mr Kwadwo Affram Asiedu, Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, on Tuesday said Ghana's trade with Canada over the years had eloquently demonstrated a very dismal performance on the part of Ghana.

He said from 1996 to 2002, the value of Ghana's exports to Canada ranged from 2.17 million dollars to 12.96 million while from 1996 to 2003 her imports ranged from 58.10 million cedis to 66.54 million dollars.

Mr Affram Asiedu, who was launching Ghana Expo Canada 2005 to be held in Toronto, Canada, in September, said in spite of Canada's investment performance, trade was still sharply skewed in Canada's favour.

He, therefore, stressed the need to do more to help arrest Ghana's poor performance.

The exhibition is being organised by Ghana Expo Canada Limited, a subsidiary of the Ghanaian News Group of Community Newspaper based in Canada, to promote Ghana's export with their diversity and refinement to Canadian and world markets.

He said to address the predicaments, Ghana's new policy on industrial reform and accelerated growth strategy had captured a far-reaching programme of economic diversification and a structural change based on selective investments in new and growing sectors for export development.

Mr Affram Asiedu urged the organisers to showcase the new policy to underscore the fact that Ghana needed investments that would help achieve its trade policy objectives of export-led growth and domestic market-led industrialization based on import competition.

He expressed the hoped that the exhibition would rekindle the interest of Canada in Ghana considering that over the last few years Ghana had established itself as a good example of good governance and rule of law, transparency, accountability and anti-corruption and had submitted to the NEPAD Peer Review Mechanism.

Mr Michael Baffoe, Public Relations Director of Ghana Expo Canada Limited, said the fair was a follow-up to the 2001 Homecoming Summit.

He said the initiative was to put up structures that would help propel the country into the future and urged all Ghanaians living abroad to contribute their quota to help to build a strong nation for future generations.

It is expected that 350 businesses from both countries would participate in the exhibition and over 40,000 people are expected to visit the fair.