GEPA holds export marketing training for exporters

Accra, Nov. 22, - The Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA) is holding a-four-day training in export marketing fundamentals for over 30 exporters and financial actors across the country.

The aim of the workshop is to support the export community to acquire managerial, technical and trade capacity as well as understand the current global export trends to give Ghana a competitive edge.

In a speech read on behalf by the Board Chairman Mr Sandy Osei-Agyemang, Ms Gifty Kekeli Klenam, the Chief Executive Officer of GEPA, said programmes such as the export school have contributed to the growth of the non-traditional export (NTEs) sector.

She said the NTEs, which is the core area of GEPA’s facilitation presented many opportunities for exporters, adding that the sector holds the key to Ghana’s export diversification drive.  

Ms Klenam said GEPA was aggressively implementing the National Export Strategy with the objective to increase the contribution of NTEs from the current $2.4 billion to $10 billion.

Over a period of four years NTEs grew at an annual average rate of about 1 per cent from $2.364 billion in 2012 to $2.463 billion in 2016.

Ms Klenam said the statistics showed that earnings have flattened and there is the need to put shoulder to the wheel to take the country out of the stagnation.

“There is the need for all of us to put in more effort to ensure that the sector’s growth is doubled and sustained,” she said.

She said GEPA has embarked on a rebranding exercise to properly position it to provide the needed support to exporters to become competitive and engender economic transformation.

“The new rebranded GEPA is poised and ready to create a new compelling positive image of GEPA to undertake strategic planning processes to be able to present the Made in Ghana products to the world,” Ms Klenam said.

She said owing to the importance of the Export Marketing Fundamentals programme, GEPA has plans to make the programme a pre-requisite part of the export registration processes in 2018.

Ms Klenam said the Authority would scale up marketing training programmes for exporters to enhance capacity and ensure they met required standards in the global market.

He said the Ghana Export School was always ready to develop training modules to meet the needs of product associations and identified groups of persons.

On his part, Mr Osei-Agyemang the Board Chairman GEPA, said building the skills and capacities of exporters is very critical if the country’s goal of increasing export returns was to be achieved.

He said exporters needed to be schooled on recent trends and changes in the export market in order to remain competitive and also help the country to grow its export base.

Among the topics being treated are Export Marketing Research, Product Planning and Product Adaptation, Legal Contracts and Negotiations, Sanitary and Photosanitary Specification and Export Procedures and Documentation.

He expressed the hope that the training would provide the opportunity to contribute towards a much stronger sector.

The Ghana Export School was set up by GEPA, the National Export Trade Support Institution of the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MOTI) responsible for the facilitation, development and promotion of Ghanaian exports in 1987, to address the training needs of the export community.

GNA