The $2.846 billion earnings from January to December 2020 was a decline of 1.84 percent compared to the $2.899 billion earnings for 2019, the Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA) 2020 statistics on NTE indicate.
The report observed that: “Over the last five years (2016 to 2020), Ghana’s Non-Traditional Exports grew at an annual average rate of 2.55 percent and contributed 19.67 percent to the total national merchandise exports of Ghana in 2020.”
The GEPA attributed the decline of $53,333,948 in 2020 to the impact of COVID-19 on global trade, decline in the performance of the processed/semi-processed products sector, and a fall in demand of traditional export products.
The report said: “The fall is due to a downward trend in the performance of the processed/semi-processed products sector, particularly, cocoa butter and canned tuna.”
It added that: “Total export fell steeply, relative to a gentle fall in NTEs during the period under review. This is due to fall in demand in all categories of traditional export products with an average fall of 56.04 percent in volume exported and a corresponding average fall of 53.08 percent in earning of all categories of traditional exports.”
However, all the top 10 leading products of the Processed, Agricultural and Arts and Craft subsectors showed increases in performance with average growths of 24.11 percent, 21.28 percent, 13.49 percent and 472.81 percent respectively.
Cashew nut is the only agriculture product that showed up in the top 10 leading products, with the rest being processed and semi processed products.
The 10 leading products are Cocoa paste, Cocoa butter, Cashew nuts, Articles of plastics, Canned Tuna, and Iron/Steel Circles/ Rods Sheets/ Billets.
The rest are Shea (Karite) Oil, Refined Palm Olein, Cocoa Powder, and Natural Rubber Sheets.
The highest contributing subsector, Processed/Semi Processed products, accounted for about 83.71 percent to total NTEs with the performance of the subsector experiencing a fall of 2.94 percent in 2020 over 2019 earnings.
Agricultural subsector recorded a 0.65 percent rise in its performance from 2019, with a 15.21 percent contribution to total NTE’s in 2020.
Industrial Art and Craft accounted for 1.08 percent of total NTEs, depicting an increase of 110.88 percent over the 2019 years earnings.
In terms of destination of NTEs, the export of goods into European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom (UK) markets, the leading destination, contributed to 34.35 percent of the total market by absorbing US$977.68 million value of NTEs.
This market value, however, reduced by 11.57 percent relative to 2019 performance due to depression of demand for cut pineapples, fresh bananas, and canned tuna, due to fall outs from disruptions in distribution chains.
Export into Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) was US$ 783,838,565, a fall from US$836,511,513, representing a 6.30 percent fall from the previous year.
This market destination represents 27.54 percent share of the total export market.
Source: GNA
