“Time to support and Improve Ghana’s Internal Trading System” – UNIDO/ TCB

The Project Coordinator of the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) Trade Capacity Building (TCB) Programme for Ghana, Mr Victor Mills has called for a policy direction on internal trading controls in Ghana.

He said the UNIDO-TCB programme, funded by the Swiss government through the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), and in collaboration with the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MOTI) is making an important contribution to strengthening Ghana’s quality infrastructure and integrating quality standards into the Ghanaian production for exports.

He stressed the need to ensure production for the domestic market also conforms to relevant quality standards.

Mr. Mills made the comments when an evaluation team from the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) Calidena Project met with the UNIDO- TCB team to share ideas and discuss areas of further interventions in the area of metrology and laboratory testing in the country.

The focus of the meeting was to assess the extent of interventions to avoid duplication of efforts.

Madam Carola Heider, the PTB - Calidena Project Coordinator for Sub-Saharan Africa led the PTB team.

She said PTB is ending the first phase of its programme which focused on quality assurance of agricultural products through metrological and testing services in Ghana and the Calidena project has partnered with GSA in that regard.

She was confident that more of such interactions with agencies like the UNIDO -TCB Programme for Ghana will be helpful in promoting conformity standards in Ghana.

The UNIDO – TCB programme has supported a number of testing laboratories to obtain international accreditation; there has been no duplication of efforts and is currently supporting a few Inspection bodies in Ghana to be accredited to ISO/IEC 17020.

The UNIDO Trade Capacity Building Programme in Ghana is aimed at improving the export competitiveness of Ghanaian exports.