Ghana improves export to US

Ghana exported $83.6 million worth of goods to the United States of America in 2003. Forty-nine per cent of the goods entered the US under the African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA). In addition, exports of apparel and clothing from Ghana to the US increased from $270,000 in 2002 to $4.2 million in 2003, while exports of agricultural produce increased from $3.3 million in 2002 to $4.7 million in 2003.

Opening the US-West Africa Agribusiness Trade Conference in Accra yesterday, Mr Alan Kyerematen, Ghana?s trade and industry minister, announced that expansion of trade as a result of AGOA had been particularly noticeable in the areas of apparel and clothing and agricultural products.

Mr Kyerematen said Ghana could export more than 6,000 products to the US market duty-free and that those products included textiles and garments and cassava starch.

One of the major challenges, he said, was the supply base, which was not large enough to meet the high demand of the US market, saying Ghana and sub-Saharan Africa were fortunate that the Act had been extended to 2015.

The trade and industry minister, therefore, stressed the need for West African countries to collaborate and explore the opportunities to do business in US since doing things individually was not the best.

The conference, which was attended by representatives of eight US companies and representatives from Burkina Faso, Benin, Guinea and Nigeria, was aimed at helping to increase agribusiness trade between the US and West African countries.