One of the biggest impediments to the growth of the export sector within the chain supply is the high cost of doing business at the country’s port.
Some of the things seen to be contributed over the years to the high cost of doing business at the ports and entry points of Ghana are unauthorized and indiscriminate charges by some shipping service providers, and also cumbersome cargo clearance procedure.
Ms. Benonita Bismarck, the Chief Executive of the Ghana Shippers Authority at the maiden exporter’s forum at Takoradi, added that the multiplicity of inspection by various government agencies, arduous process in obtaining licenses and permits from statutory bodies still restrained exporters from meeting turnaround times, throughout the year and ultimately affecting profitability and customer relations.
The exporters forum under the theme: “Addressing The Challenges of Exporters; the role of the Stakeholders”, brought industry players from private and public sector to deliberate and find solutions to the myriad of problems facing the sector and how best they could be mitigated to enable the sector to contribute meaningfully to the socioeconomic growth of the country.
She said the economic growth of every country was very crucial to its national development and said the introduction of the Export Promotion Strategy was critical to accelerating growth and development in order to improve upon the quality of lives of the citizenry.
The CEO noted that the exporters’ forum would commence the process stakeholders in the export supply chain would meet regularly to discuss the challenges enumerated in order to find quick solutions to them and also facilitate export especially through the Port of Takoradi.
She mentioned that the Shipper’s Authority had therefore intensified its collaboration with the Ghana Export Promotion Authority for effective collaboration.
The CEO of the Ghana Export Promotion Authority, noted how incumbent it had become for government agencies to strive to always respond to the challenges faced by the exporters in the activities.
“The Western Region used to be one of the main hubs in export activities but unfortunately, the contribution of export revenues had dwindled considerably… In 2017, only 12 companies exported from the Region whiles only 10 companies did same in 2018”.
“I dare say that we may be confronted with much bigger issues if we don’t devise urgent strategies and measures to arrest the decline in export from the Region”.
Meanwhile, the Authority had developed and was building capacities of Exporters to enable them to become more competitive in the international market.
Mr Charles Darling Sey, Regional Manager of the Ghana Shipper’s Authority commended stakeholders for availing themselves for the exercise meant to address problems such as rent charges, poor services, haulage charges, wrong code, Arrival times, dock gang inefficiency and forestry Commission harassment among others.
He said, “The challenges are multifaceted and requires multi-agency approach to address some of these challenges”.
Mr. Peter Amoo-Bediako, the Manager of the Public Affairs and Marketing at the Takoradi Port, encouraged exporters and all stakeholders in the export value chain to as a matter of importance know and value their roles in the chain in order to maximize benefits associated with shipping as they worked to improve the sector.
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