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Ghana has given out more to the EU -
TWN
Accra, Dec. 21, Ghanadot/GNA - The Third World Network, a
trade advocacy group, says government had given up much more
to the European Commission than it would gain in the Interim
Economic Partnership Agreement dubbed; ‘stepping stone
agreement’ signed between the parties early in December.
Mr Tetteh Hormeku, Head of Programmes of TWN, said the
agreement did not only commit government to liberalise an
overwhelming proportion of its imports from the EU without
clear cut policy as to which sectors would be affected.
Ghana's interim agreement provides for the immediate
abolition of tariffs on virtually all exports to Europe, and
for the gradual dismantling over 15 years of tariffs on 80
percent of imports from the 27-member bloc.
The remaining 20 percent of imports are deemed "sensitive
products" which will be subject to tariffs even after the
15-year transition period to promote economic development,
food security, employment and government revenue generation.
By the terms of the agreement, the government committed
itself to a schedule by which different tariffs on
categories of products would be removed at different times.
For some of these products, all tariffs must be removed in
five years starting from as early as 2009 while others must
be eliminated by 2017.
Mr Hormeku said, the agreement, however, did not specify the
total percentage of goods to be liberalized according to the
categorization schedule.
“This is only implied in the categorization of the goods for
liberalization which was supplied by the European Union,
according to which about 20 per cent of imports fall under
the category of goods not to be liberalized,” he said.
Mr Hormeku said by accepting to allow 80 percent of some
European goods into the Ghanaian market duty-free and
quota-free without clear studies as to the effect posed a
danger to the country’s fragile economy.
He held that it was wrong for government to commit itself to
future negotiations in areas of investment, competition,
trade in services and intellectual property when such issues
had been rejected by ECOWAS.
Mr Hormeku said it was strange that an agreement supposed to
cover trade in goods only and to be replaced by a
comprehensive EPA when it was concluded should contain
elaborate mechanism for dispute settlement and committing
for negotiations of non-trade areas.
Ghana has become the second West African country to sign an
interim agreement, as developing countries rush to prevent
disruption in their exports to the EU, the world's biggest
trading bloc.
Neighbouring Cote d’Ivoire was the first in the region to
initial an interim trade deal in goods, in a move some said
broke ranks with the position of the Economic Community of
West African States (ECOWAS) that the deadline should be
extended to allow for broader negotiations.
But ECOWAS Commission President Mohamed Ibn Chambas told the
Ghana News Agency in an interview that the community
supported specific interim arrangements to allow exports of
goods only to continue, so long as they did not pre-empt
talks on a broader regional EPA text.
Dr Chambas said while encouraging interim trade deals by
individual countries, ECOWAS expected to see those countries
in solidarity with the "common position" of the bloc in its
call for an extension of the deadline and the removal of
some of the proposals deemed inimical to the region's
investment rules and integration process.
GNA
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