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Govt decides on interim EPA

Kwabena Koranteng

Ghana may miss the 30th June deadline signing of the Interim Economic Partnership Agreement (IEPA), as the government has called for more time to carefully study the proposal.

According to sources at the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MOTI), the government has informed the European Commission that it is new on the governance seat and therefore needed more time to study the proposal.

The delay by the government is said to be in line with the position of civil society organizations (CSOs), especially the Third World Network (TWN), which has, for many years, been advocating against the signing of the EPAs.

TWN has argued that liberalizing 80% of Ghana’s trade with the EU will have a significant negative impact on Ghana’s trade, especially employment opportunities in the manufacturing sector and reducing competition in both the service and the industrial sectors, as subsidized goods from the European market are likely to flood Ghana’s market at cheaper rates.

Ghana earlier on attempted to sign its own EPA with the EC after La Cote d’Ivoire’s to avoid the EU blocking exports from Ghana into its market.

Based on this, the CSOs led by Tetteh Homeku of TWN indicated that Ghana’s earlier decision was going to undermine the region’s attempt to have a common agreement with the EU.

The CSOs, through series of campaigns, will soon start making inputs into the common agreement being developed by ECOWAS after the EC has refused Ghana the right to sign on to the Generalized System of Preference (GSP) which enables it to prevent some preferred sectors of trade from being totally liberalized.

CSOs have argued that the EPAs would not meaningfully improve access to the EU market for Ghanaian exporters beyond what they currently enjoy.

Under the EPA, Ghana is likely to reciprocate by liberalizing a substantial part of its trade as envisaged by the EU.

The European Commission is seeking to establish free trade areas with ACP countries which will ensure 100% liberalization of its trade with the ACP liberalizing 80% of its trade.

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