Participants fail to attend workshop

Accra, May 11, GNA - Participants apart from the media scheduled to attend a training workshop on Contingency Trade Protection Measures organised by the Ministry Of Trade and Industry (MOTI) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Accra on Monday failed to turn up.

Organisers of the workshop could not give reasons, however similar ones organised for the pharmaceutical companies held last week were well attended. Participants who were selected from the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA), Private Enterprise Foundation (PEF), Ghana Chamber of Commerce and the Media were educated on contingency trade measures.

Director of AGI, Cletus Kosiba and GUTA President George Ofori in a phone interview with the GNA said they were invited late Friday and there was no way they could attend programmes at such short notices as businessmen.

The media was however educated on levels of protection for domestic industries through the use of tariff as checks on unfair trade practices, use of imports prohibitions and import permit to safeguard the environment, national security, public health and safety and the protection of public morals as well as the establishment of a fair system of rules of origin for the purpose of granting preferential market access to foreign producers.

Ghana became founding member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 1995 and become a signatory to the WTO agreement to accept all the multilateral agreement annexed to it, including those on dumping, subsidies and adoption of measures to safeguard domestic industries in situation where increased imports have caused or threatened to cause problems for domestic industries.

Mr. Appiah-Donyina, Acting Director of Imports and Exports Team at the Ministry said the current position of government was that international trade should be administered in a transparent, fair, and equitable manner, providing equality of competitive condition for both foreign domestic producers. This position, he said, was reflected in the Trade Sector Support Programme (TSSP) under which government had set a number of objectives to be attained through the use of tariffs and non tariffs measures. Dr Dominic Ayine of the University of Ghana School of Law noted that in order to provide the institutional basis for the implementation, the trade and Investment Programme for Competitive Economy (TIPCEE), has started the process for the establishment of the Tariff Advisory Board (TAB) as a division of the Ministry.

TAB, he said, would among other things, monitor, review and advice the minister on matters affecting trade and industry, study, identify and recommend tariff levels for specific sectors of the economy with due regards to the effective rate of protection. It would also well conduct studies and publish reports on the competitiveness of Ghana's tariff structure and its impact on revenue and domestic industries and market access opportunity and challenges for exports.

The TAB will therefore provide remedial relief to domestic industries with legitimate and legally justifiable complaints relating to dumping, subsidization, imports increases that have caused them to lose competitiveness. He however, explained that the investigation and adjudication of such matters entailed the application of highly technical rules and rules derived from the relevant WTO Agreements. The efficient and effective performance of the functions by TAB would require not only that staff and members of the TAB be well versed in the rules and regulations, but also all stakeholders-domestic producers, importers, exporters and consumers as well as Ministries, Departments and Agencies would understand the underlying policies of those rules and regulations and how they would apply.