The Ghana Trade Fair, on Wednesday, launched the 23rd Ghana International Trade Fair, scheduled for February 28 to March 11, 2019, in Accra.
The Fair, which is on the theme: ‘Made in Ghana; Globally Accepted’, is to provide quality Made in Ghana Goods to industrialise the country to reduce dependence on imports.
Mr Robert Carlos Ahenkorah, a Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, said Ghana acknowledged that trade fairs exposed where the major drivers of industrialisation could be located.
‘There is no way we can have industrial projects without churning out products and without showcasing them to people to take them off’.
Mr Ahenkorah said he had seen companies collapse due to the lack of exposing their products to the public.
‘These are some of the reasons countries like Dubai and China try so hard to host exhibitions and trade fairs.
He said: ‘What Dubai and China are doing today is only in line with what the Government of Ghana is doing to enhance the domestic trade environment, which seeks to ensure that products manufactured here are consumed by Ghanaians or liked by them.’
‘All these efforts are to generate interest in goods that are manufactured in Ghana for Ghanaians to accept that what is produced here is rightfully ours’.
Mr Ahenkorah explained that importing goods from other countries gave them the advantages of creating jobs for their people who had helped in the manufacturing, adding that, ‘patrons are, therefore, walking advertisement for the exporting countries.’
He said the Government had taken a bold step to enhance the domestic trading environment as one of its strategic concepts to push up made in Ghana goods.
The goods, however, would have to be properly packaged to be accepted worldwide, he said.
Mr Ahenkorah said many goods produced in Ghana were of higher quality and of better taste than others elsewhere; but bad packaging, was the cause of the lack of penetration and market distribution.
Dr Agnes Adu, Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Trade Fair Company, said their goal was to make the trade fair site the best trading hub in Ghana and the preferred trading place for investment.
Source: modernghana.com
