ACCRA, July 29 (Xinhua) -- A finance expert on Thursday urged banks in Ghana as well as in other West African countries to support the exports by local exporters.
Judson B. Welsh, a consultant with African Investors Management Services (AIMS), asked representatives of financial institutions and non-traditional exporters to work as partners to build a strong and mutual beneficial export sector.
Speaking at a seminar here on Thursday, Welsh cited as an example the export of Ghana's cocoa, which was financed by an off-shore consortium mainly from Europe and America.
The seminar was jointly organized by the Ghana Export Promotion Council (GEPC), Export Marketing and Quality Awareness Project (EMQAP) and the Federation of Association of Ghanaian Exporters (FAGE), which tried to bring financial institutions and exporters together to see each other as partners instead of competitors.
"Banks in Ghana and West Africa do trade financing but it is tilted in support of import transactions against production and export processing," Welsh said, calling on financial institutions to target the horticultural non-traditional export sector.
Mawuli Agboka, head of EMQPA, told the seminar that both the banks and exporters had wrong perceptions about each other, as banks claimed they had money to lend but export financing was a high risk area while exporters saw banks as unwilling customers who did not understand their business.
However, statistics issued by the EMQPA showed that Ghana's export in the 70 billion global trade in fresh fruits and vegetables had been growing at 20 percent over 20 years, but started stagnating in 2007.
