He said there were many opportunities in the export market which they could leverage when they collaborated to increase their quota.

“We are discouraging them from competing with one another because we have come of age and we need to take advantage of the export market.

“Instead of competing among ourselves let us collaborate to be able to meet the expectations of the export market. For us it is better to collaborate and share proceeds than losing the opportunity,” he said at the opening of a five-day training programme in Accra on Monday.

Training

The free five-day training programme (13-17 December, 2021) is being organised by GEPA in collaboration with the Trade Facilitation Office (TFO), Canada.

It is geared towards creating sustainable trade partnerships for exporters from Ghana with the Canadian and other foreign buyers.

It will provide a unique and valuable platform for businesses to familiarise themselves with best practices relating to trade shows; steps in cross-cultural negotiations; key documents and identification of a Harmonised System (HS) code for products and factors affecting pricing in an export market.

The training, Mr Diwura said, would be extended to other parts of the country, including Kumasi, Takoradi and Tamale.

He explained that many women were doing very well in the export trade business such that it was important to build their capacity to help them meet the challenges in the international trade arena.

“Unlike the local market which has less restrictions, the international trade market has a lot of demands such as product certification, meeting the legal side of the international trade and export documentation,” he noted.

Describing the training as an important one to aid in growing non-traditional export earnings (NTE), he said “the NTE performance for 2020 is $2.8 billion. Through the implementation of the National Export Development Strategy (NEDS) document we hope to achieve a $25.3 billion target in revenue by the year 2029.”

“We cannot do this without capacity building; people must be abreast with what happens on the other side of the world and they must be able to produce to conform to what the world is looking for,” he noted.