COCOA paste maintained its lead as the highest earner among the top 10 products that contributed most to the country’s Non-Traditional Export (NTE) earnings last year.
The product earned the country $495.89 million, compared to the $463 million earned in 2020, representing a growth of 7.1 per cent.
Aluminium plates, sheets and coils were, however, the lowest earner in the year under review, contributing just $90.98 million.
A report on ‘Analysis of Non-Traditional Export Statistics’ launched by the Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA) listed the top 10 leading NTE products as cocoa paste, cocoa butter, cashew nuts, articles of plastics, canned tuna and natural rubber sheets.
The rest are refined palm olein, iron/steel circles, rods, sheets and billets, cocoa powder and aluminium plates.
The report showed that the total value of the top 10 leading products amounted to $2 billion, representing 62.96 per cent of total NTE earnings of $3.3 billion in the period under review.
Of the total earnings from the NTEs, cocoa paste, which is the biggest earner, contributed 14.89 per cent to the total NTEs while aluminium plates, sheets and coils contributed 2.73 per cent.
Cashew nuts were the only agricultural product that popped up on the list of the top 10 leading products.
Breakdown
Cocoa butter recorded $363.95 million in 2021 against $253 million in 2020, indicating 43.83 per cent, while cashew nuts did $287.46 million against $252 million in 2020.
Articles of plastics contributed $182 million in the year under review, higher than the $157 million it contributed the previous year, with canned tuna adding $152 million the same year as against $128 million in 2020.
In the same period under review, iron/steel (circles, rods, sheets, billets) recorded $140 million, higher than the $118 million it contributed in 2020.
Natural rubber sheets did $135 million in the year as against $73 million the previous year, while refined palm olein contributed $127 million as against $89 million in 2020. On the other hand, cocoa powder contributed $122 million in 2021 as against $77 million in 2020.
Interventions
With the advent of the National Export Development Strategy (NEDS), Ghana will be embarking on an ambitious leap towards industrialisation and export.
The NEDS seeks to vigorously promote and support Ghanaian manufacturing companies to undertake cocoa processing in Ghana and forward integration towards the selling of liquified chocolate mass or manufacturing of chocolates and chocolate products in the consumer market.
The NEDS, spanning 10 years (2020-2029), seeks to diversify and grow the NTE sector of the economy and places emphasis on providing support for continuous product development.
It seeks to give a significant boost to Ghana’s export volumes by growing NTEs from US$2.8 billion (2020) to US$25.3 billion in 2029.
