Ghana Export Promotion Council

The Ghana Export Promotion Council

An autonomous body set up in 1969, the Ghana Export Promotion Council gives impetus to exports from Ghana. The Council works under the aegis of the Ministry of Trade and Industry and is the central institution in the country that works towards promotion and development of non-traditional exports from the country.

Why was the Council Established?

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Ghanaian and foreign economists felt that Ghana was too dependent on cocoa export and some other traditional exports. If the country continued being a mono-crop economy, its economy would not flourish or keep pace with the global trends. So, to help spur the country’s economy and help it meet the changing global trends, The Ghana Export Promotion Council was established. The feeling was that the Council would alter the country’s export fortunes, as it would be supporting primarily small businesses that operated mostly outside the ambit of Ghana’s formal economy.

The Council’s Objectives and Scope of Activities

The main objective of the Export Promotion Council is to ensure that export trade plays a role in aiding economic growth of the country. The Council concentrates on marketing non-conventional products using some strategic and aggressive marketing.

In order to meet its objectives, the Council has a wide-ranging scope of activities, which include the following:

• Create an awareness about export in the country
• Identify products suitable for export and locate appropriate markets for them
• Organise exhibitions and trade fairs in and outside the country to create a goodwill for products made in Ghana
• Provide Ghanaian exporters with all the required help, so that they can enter competitive markets abroad
• Organise market missions to facilitate meetings between exporters and prospective buyers from abroad
• Offer advice to exporters on export marketing
• Train exporters and staff from export institutions to enhance their export marketing skills
• Recommend to the government the assistance and/ or incentives that Ghanaian exporters need
• Provide businessmen and exporters travelling overseas from Ghana with relevant information and knowledge about target markets

General Service

The Council has an excellent library that has many useful books and resources, which can educate exporters about export products, different marketing systems, methods of marketing, packaging details, quality control and viable export markets. The library also contains foreign publications on export trade. In fact, businessmen coming from abroad also call upon the Council, as it is an extremely reliable source to gather information about different businesses in Ghana and the overall business climate in the country.

Advisory Service

The Council has highly trained and skilled counsels, who can offer advisory services on a wide ranging issues related to export and marketing. These include product development, packaging, shipping, pricing, travel, and handling and preserving products. The Council’s advisory service helps Ghanaian exporters effectively penetrate overseas markets.

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Registration and Incentives to Exporters

The Council is the institute in the country where commercial exporters have to register themselves. This registration not only helps the Council to keep its records up-to-date on the different exporters in Ghana, it also allows the Council to match exporters to interested overseas buyers, recommend incentives for exporters, and monitor performance of exporters, so that they can get access to schemes and awards that the Council routinely offers.

In association with the Ministry of Trade and Industry, the Export Council offers many export incentives to Ghanaian exporters, such as giving rebate on corporate tax, offering competitive forex rates to exporters to change all the proceeds from the export, giving a customs duty drawback of up to 100 percent on imported materials that are used to produce the export product.

Export Market Development

One of the Council’s main roles is to help the Ghanaian exporters find overseas buyers. This Council expects to accomplish this goal by using the country’s missions in abroad, foreign missions located within Ghana and the trade organisations around the world.

Facilitating Trade

The Export Promotion Council makes the entire process of trading quite easy and convenient for the business parties involved by liaising with other agencies, such as Customs, Excise, freight carriers, Insurers, Bank of Ghana, and the Ports and Harbour Authority in the country to simplify several documentation and export procedures.