GEPA ORGANIZES 77TH NATIONAL EXPORTERS’ FORUM

Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA) is organizing the 77th National Exporters’ Forum on 4th October 2017. This is a platform created the by GEPA to bring exporters, export facilitation institutions and the entire exporter community together to dialogue on pertinent issues affecting the sector.

Originally known as the “Exporters’ Forum”, the National Exporters’ Forum was instituted in 1987 by the Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA). The aim was to provide a platform for finding ‘on-the-spot’ solutions to challenges exporters face in their business and also to inform and educate them on new programmes and policies relating to the export trade. It has become a flagship programme for the exporter community in Ghana because it provides one of the best opportunities for varied groups of people in the sector to congregate, share ideas and discuss ways of promoting exports in Ghana.

The dynamism and quality of interactions at the Exporters’ Forum has in the past provided invaluable impetus for the formulation, evaluation and/or re-design of programmes to suit the needs of exporters. Accordingly, the annual programmes of GEPA and many export facilitating agencies are based on the needs of the exporter community as discussed at the National Exporters’ Fora. This has both maintained national interest in exports and ensured that GEPA undertakes programmes relevant to exporters.

The Exporters’ Forum has therefore played a lead role in the improvement and introduction of incentives and support programmes in the exporter sector in Ghana. These include the following:

The establishment of GEPA Export School
The introduction of the National Awards for Export Achievement;
The introduction of the Ghana Export Form, which drastically reduced, export procedures and documentations from the submission of close to forty-seven different bills of entry. The process has further been improved through the operation of the Ghana Community Network System and now electronic submission on the Ghana’s trading Hub;
Expansion of ECOWAS Market
Establishment of refrigerated fruit terminal at our ports;
Establishment and review of the Export Development and Investment Fund to directly provide financial support for Agriculture investment; (and lately its conversion to Eximbank).
Establishment of cold chain facilities at our terminals,
The need for the establishment of a National Traceability System

The year event will focus on the implementation of the “one District, one Exportable Product’ Programme being undertaken by the GEPA. It will also talk about how it can work more closely with institutions like the EXIM Bank and the Ghana Commercial Bank (GCB) on economic activities that would improve Ghana’s Export Trade. GCB Bank is sponsoring the programme, which is expected to bring in about four hundred members of the exporter community in Ghana.

Source:GEPA