In a quest to increase export trade values, the Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA) has held a workshop to adopt a national export development strategy.This is expected to enhance Ghana’s effective participation within the multinational trading system so as to also increase revenues from non-traditional export.Speaking at the 2nd National Export Development Strategy Formulation workshop in Ada, CEO of GEPA, Afua Asabea Asare, explained that the purpose for this new strategy is to, among other things, complement government’s industrialization agenda.“Government’s commitment to expanding and transforming Ghana’s export economy is also clear. It is for this reason that the trade minister requested for the review of the National Export Strategy, which had expired, to include Government’s industrialization agenda,” she noted.With this new strategy, GEPA has set “an ambitious export revenue target that must reflect what Ghanaians yearn for in order to make the Ghanaian economy truly export-led.”Trade Minister, Alan Kyeremanteng, listed some areas the strategy will cover. These include export finance, technology and innovation, exchange rate, value addition, product quality and packaging, selection of competitive products to be developed and promoted, market access, capacity building, export trade facilities, international standards and regulations as well as export value chain development.According to Mr Kyeremanteng, “the strategy will prescribe measures which will enable Ghana leverage on and take advantage of the Free Trade Agreements such as the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) with USA and the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union (EU) which ensures Ghana’s export products enter into these markets duty free and quota free as well.”Records from the Bank of Ghana show that Ghana’s total export increased from $10.61 billion dollars in 2016 to $14.86 billion dollars in 2018. The country imported $11.36 billion, $12.65 billion and $13.09 billion worth of goods and services from its trading partners in 2016, 2017 and 2018 respectively.Ghana’s 2018 trade data, however, shows that the country recorded a trade surplus of $1.78 billion in 2018. This translated into 2.7 per cent of the country’s GDP for 2018.