Ghana will play host to an international conference on Information Communication Technology and financial sector investment in Accra from November 7-9 this year.
The annual conference, dubbed “Bridges across borders,” will be attended by 200 participants from Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa to discuss networking in ICT.
It will bring professionals in ICT and finance to brainstorm critical issues on ICT networking trends and modern practices. The “Bridges across borders” conference is being organised by the Geneva-based International Trade Centre in collaboration with the Ghana Export Promotion Council.
A senior export development Officer at the GEPC, Edmund Opoku-Agyeman, disclosed this at a forum on services export on Saturday at Dodowa in the Dangbe West District.
The forum was organised by the Private Enterprises Foundation in conjunction with the GEPC with sponsorship from the Support Programme for Enterprise Empowerment and Development (Ghana). PEF will hold a similar forum in Dodowa next Saturday to dissect trade and related issues comprehensively.
Attended by 37 participants from the public and private sectors, the forum focused on opportunities in the ICT and finance sectors. It also highlighted the potential avenues that exist for professionals and business operators and bring them to the attention of policy makers and enterprises.
PEF organised the forum to build the capacity of trade, business and professional associations to advantage of the potentials in service export. PEF says it has realised the unexploited opportunities to increase export of services in Ghana as a result of the new digital economy which facilitates the marketing and delivery of services on-line, and the trend in developed countries to contract out or outsource non-core functions to developing countries.
The foundation is therefore promoting the export of professional and technical services by small and medium enterprises to the West African sub-region and beyond.
In a presentation on the topic “Creating a Successful Services Export Sector in Ghana,” Mr Opoku-Agyeman said services are the engine of growth for the 21st century and driver of the global economy now and in future. He said capacity should be developed at the individual, organisational and societal levels since the processes work better than imported solutions, while a multi-sectoral approach is required.
“Ghana has a large pool of professionals and consultants of international standards offering a wide range of services to both Ghanaian and foreign clients. Some notable services offered are accountancy, architectural management consultancy, market research surveying services construction and allied engineering services.”
He pointed out that there is need to shift from preference for foreign consultants to local ones, adding that “bidding procedures and requirements discriminating to local consultants.”
Mr Opoku-Agyeman suggested business associations should develop an executive summary highlighting services success stories from priority sectors as well as develop an awards programme to be known as “service association of the year.”
According to Osei Boeh-Ocansey, Director-General of PEF, from a trade promotion perspective, service exports fall into five categories that benefit from slightly different promotional approaches. These are infrastructure services, Information Technology and related services, business services, professional services and quality-of-life services.
“Geographic location can also be exploited to full advantage in exporting transport and logistics services to sahelian land-locked countries in west Africa region, using the ports of Tema and Takoradi and well developed road and water transport corridors to ship transit cargo. Similar prospects exist for passengers and cargo by air transport,” Dr Boeh-Ocansey stated.
Source: The Statesman
