Loading

You Are Here: Home » Africa/International, Lead Story » Ghana, Nigeria disagree on trade volume

Ghana, Nigeria disagree on trade volume

Page last updated at Wednesday, April 1, 2009 7:07 AM // Leave Your Comment

ghana-nigeria-flagsOfficials of the Ghanaian and Nigerian governments, yesterday in Abuja, had a slight disagreement as to the volume of trade between both countries. This discord came to light when Ghana’s Minister for Trade and Industry, Miss Hannah Tetteh, paid a courtesy visit on Nigeria’s Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, Humphrey Enemakwu Abah.

In a twist of issues, while Ghana’s Acting High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mr. Kofi Nuhu was giving the figures for trade volume between Nigeria and Ghana, he said that as at March 2008, Nigeria’s import from Ghana was $75 million while it exported just $25 million worth of goods in the non-oil export category. Plus the oil export, he said the total export to Ghana from Nigeria was $500 million.

Realising the wideness of the figures given by the High Commissioner from Ghana, General Manager, Marketing Development, at the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Sheik Umar Ababakar, disagreed, telling Journalists that Nigeria’s export to Ghana in the non oil export category alone was $89 million as at December 2008.

Responding to the figures, the Nigeria’s Minister of State said that “these are discussions that transverse both countries. As regards the trade imbalance, we are at the receiving end. $25 million of export as against $75 million of import is not a good marking. We need to up our non-oil export so that we can also leverage on the opportunities available and meet up with the other West coast countries in terms of trade. As it is today, the imbalance is against us”

The Minister from Ghana visited on account of an earlier discussion with Abah, in Ghana, to resolve certain issues that bother on alleged harassment of Nigerian traders in Ghana.

Tetteh said that at the meeting in Ghana, Nigeria’s Minister of State for Commerce had raised certain concerns about Nigerians doing business in Ghana and it was agreed that both parties would work on the issues so that by April, it would have been resolved.

She explained that all nationals were free to work in Ghana but there were certain aspects, such as petty trading, reserved for Ghanaians by the government of Ghana; and that any other national that would want to go into such businesses were required to have a minimum capital of $350,000.

“What the government of Ghana has done was to say that for those who wish to engage in trading, you must have a minimum capital of $350, 000. For the Nigerian traders, the arrangement with the Ghanaian Investment Promotion Centre was that rather than have them meet the capital requirement individually, they could do it as groups. Even though in the case of every other country, they have to meet the requirement individually”.

“We have one of those groups that registered still encountering difficulties and we have resolved to sort it out by the end of April. The issues involve some problems with the Ghana Union of Traders Association, and at the Ministry of Trade and Industry, we are going to make sure we dialogue with the various groups so that we can come to an amicable solution”, she assured.

She explained that up till now, Nigerians have always done business in Ghana without problems, and that presently, there were numerous Nigerian businesses in Ghana that are penetrating without complaints of harassment.

“It is not a case that Nigerians are being subjected to harassment in Ghana. It is the issue of petty trading, which the Ghanaian government has reserved for Ghanaians’, she said.

She added that the problems took place in the previous administration in Ghana and promised that the new government was committed to ensuring that the issues that constitute challenges in doing business with Nigeria was sorted out by April.

Source: Guardian News

Email | Print This Story | Tweet This! |

Comments

Leave a Reply