Government has inaugurated a Steering Committee of the National Export Development Strategy (NEDS) to ensure oversight for the effective implementation of the Strategy.

The Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA) was tasked by the Ministry of Trade and Industry in 2019 to spearhead the formulation of the National Export Development Strategy (NEDS), which projects Ghana's current export environment and a vision of the desired evolution of Ghana's Non-traditional Export sector from 2020 to 2029.

Inaugurating the board, Deputy Minister for Trade and Industry, Herbert Krapa charged the 13-member committee to achieve the target of accruing $25.3 billion in revenue from non-traditional exports by 2029.

“Your work is clearly cut out, to support the inter-ministerial committee, the coordination office and GEPA in order to achieve the targets set,” he said.

The first phase of the sensitization of NEDS covered 30 clusters out of the 74 clusters in the 261 districts in the country. Notwithstanding, Mr. Krapa urged the committee to do more.

“NEDS was completed and launched in October 2020. The regional sensitization workshops were held in all 16 regions. In December 2020, a national coordination secretariat was established, sensitization workshop was organized for the parliamentary select committee on trade, industry and tourism in 2021,” he said.

“Then there’s been an establishment of other implementation structures. The sector specific groups have been inaugurated and today we’ve inaugurated the steering committee to steer the strategy to realization,” he added.

The 13-member Steering Committee has Chief Director of the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Patrick Yaw Nimo as chair. The team comprises chief executives of the Ghana Export Promotion Authority, Ghana Investment Promotion Centre, Food and Drugs Authority, Ghana Export-Import Bank, Ghana National Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Association of Ghana Industries, Ghana Enterprises Agency and representatives from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Ministry of Local Government, Decentralization and Rural Development, National Coordination Office of AfCFTA, National Development Planning Commission and Ghana Standards Board