Revenue from Non-Traditional Exports hit $2.8bn in 2020 – GEPA
The Ghana Export Promotions Authority (GEPA), has announced that, revenue from Ghana’s Non-Traditional Export earnings from January to December 2020 amounted to $2.846 billion.
As compared to the earnings recorded in 2019, there was a decrease of 1.84 percent in the recorded amount for 2020.
The decrease according to GEPA, was caused by the impact of covid-19 on global trade, adding that, the fall was due to a downward trend in the processed and semi-processed product sector’s performance, particularly cocoa butter and canned tuna.
CEO of GEPA, Dr. Afua Asabea Asare, explained that the performance was appreciable taking into consideration the ravaging effect of the pandemic, with the World Trade Organisation also confirming that global economic activities declined between 13 – 32 percent due to the effects of the virus.
She threw more light on the authority’s commitmment, in ensuring that the $25.3 billion target set by the National Export Development Strategy (NEDS) will be achieved by 2029.
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“We remain committed to ensuring product transformation and value addition in alignment with the NEDS to achieve the set target by 2029. It may seem daunting, but with a collaborative approach with the necessary stakeholders Ghana will win,” she said.
The manufacturing subsector of the NTEs, comprising processed and semi-processed products, recorded a 83.71 percent growth which amounted to $2.38 billion in 2020, compared to $2.46 billion in 2019 – constituting a fall of 2.94 percent.
The agricultural subsector recorded a 0.65 percent rise in its performance from 2019 with a total contribution of 15.21 percent to the NTEs in 2020. This, in monetary terms, translated to $430 million in 2019 and to $433 million in 2020..
Meanwhile, industrial art and craft accounting for 1.08 percent of total NTEs grew by an overwhelming 110.88 percent over the 2019 year earnings.
The top-10 earners of the NTEs include cocoa paste, cocoa butter, cashew nut, articles of plastics, canned tuna, iron and steel, shea, refined palm oil, cocoa powder and natural rubber sheets in that order.
Explaining the subsector performance of these products, Deputy Director of Services and Manufacturers at GEPA, Banda Abdallah, said cocoa paste outperformed cocoa butter as the highest earner, with natural rubber sheets being the lowest earner among the top-ten leading products.
Cocoa paste and natural rubber earned $463.41 million and $73.60 million respectively with an average earnings of the top-ten earners being $170.37 million. Indeed, the total value of the top-10 leading products amounted to over $1.7 billion representing 59.85 percent of total NTE earnings for 2020.
Cocoa paste, which was the biggest earner among the NTEs, contributed 16.50 percent while natural rubber sheets contributed 2.62 percent. Cashew nut was the only agricultural product that showed up in the top-ten leading products, with the rest all being processed and semi-processed products.
