Chief executive officer of the Ghana Investment Promotion Authority (GIPC) Yofi Grant has hinted of plans by the Malta to establish phytosanitary research lab in Ghana.

This move, he says has seen the Ghana Standard Authority sign a memorandum of understanding with Malta.

Speaking to Ghanaweb at the 2nd Ghana – Malta Business Forum in Accra, the GIPC CEO said, Malta setting up phytosanitary labs in Ghana will help the country have quality certification of goods for export.

“We have signed an MOU with Malta to provide phytosanitary and all the certification that we require when exporting to the European market. They will also be here to train. We also have an MOU in aquaculture to enable us build our expertise in that sector.”

“The good thing about the Maltese is that once the commit their words, they live to it”, he noted.

The phytosanitary certificate is an official declaration stating that plants and plant material exporting are free from pests and diseases, so as to prevent introduction and spread of any pests in the importing countries. Ghana lost about US$36 million in foreign exchange as a result of a ban on some five vegetable exports into the European Union (EU) market between 2015 and 2017, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture said.

The five concerned plants were chilli pepper, bottle gourds, luffa gourds, bitter gourds and eggplants.

The EU banned the vegetables from Ghana after an audit undertaken by the Directorate General for Health and Food Safety of the European Commission detected a high number of interceptions of harmful organisms on some plant products from Ghana.

After the ban was lifted at the last quarter of 2017, Ghanaian authorities have taken significant corrective measures to improve the inspection and control system for plant health at exit various points.

However, the GIPC boss believes that Malta putting up phytosanitary labs in Ghana will increase quality standards.