The Business & Financial Times
July 9, 2021
Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta has reiterated the need for Ghana to go into strategic partnerships with developed countries to add value to the country’s basic exports to improve foreign earnings.
He stated that Ghana has exported over US$18 billion worth of cocoa to Switzerland in recent times but the European country controls more than five times the value in the cocoa processing market. This, he said, can be reversed through strategic partnerships to enable Ghana—the primary producer of cocoa to earn significant returns from the commodity.
“The terms of trade are fascinating. We have exported about US$18 billion worth of cocoa to Switzerland and they have turned it into hundreds of billions of dollars. They have given us a grant of US$370 million which we are grateful for, but we need to relook the relationship to benefit us more from trade,” Mr. Ofori-Atta said after the government of Switzerland signed an agreement with the government of Ghana to provide a grant of €20 million to help promote climate change awareness among Ghanaians.