Meeting of African shippers councils underway in Accra
The Vice-President, Mr Kwesi Amissah-Arthur, has urged the Union of African Shippers Councils (UASC) to develop a blueprint for increasing intra-African trade by removing obstacles and improving the competitiveness of shippers in the sub-region.
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He underscored the importance the government attached to the work of the UASC, which involves promoting the interests of shippers across the sub-region, noting that the work of importers and exporters who formed part of the group was the fulcrum around which international trade revolved.
Mr Amissah-Arthur said this in an address read on his behalf by a Minister of State at the Presidency, Mr Akwasi Opong-Fosu, at the opening of the 10th General Assembly of the UASC in Accra yesterday.
“Because of the work the importer and the exporter engage in, there is business for the port, the shipowner, the terminal operator, the freight forwarder and the custom house agent and the state itself is a beneficiary of the activities of shippers,” he stressed
He said the focus of the union in protecting and promoting the interest of shippers required the attention of the governments of member countries to increase economic development.
Co-operation
Mr Amissah Arthur noted that within the framework of a new spirit of co-operation, trade liberalisation that placed premium on the eradication of poverty, the bridging of development gaps and the realisation of the United Nations basic principles of human rights and good governance had taken centre stage.
He urged shippers to let that be their guiding principle as the UASC reviewed its work in the last two years and charted a course for the ensuing years at the three-day meeting.
Shippers Authority Regulation
On Ghana, the Deputy Minister of Transport, Mrs Joyce Bawah Mogtari, said the government, having come to terms with the predicament of shippers, had strengthened the legal muscle of the Ghana Shippers Authority (GSA) by the passage of the Ghana Shippers Authority Regulation.
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She said the objective was to give shippers reliefs, with respect to the payment of high demurrage and rent charges, as well as reduce delays in the clearance of cargo and its associated cost.
The Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Ibrahim Murtala Muhammed, acknowledged the efforts of the UASC in popularising the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Agreement on trade facilitation in West and Central Africa.
He said the two regions would benefit from the agreement only when shippers, service providers, as well as the various ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) involved in international trade, understood the rules and complied with requirements to reduce the cost of doing business.
The Chief Executive Officer of the GSA, Dr Kofi Mbiah, said the UASC was 39 years old and stressed the need, therefore, for the members to set a new tone and a landmark for the resuscitation of their economies.