Financial Analyst, Sydney Casely-Hayford says Ghana should sign the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) because its benefits far exceed its disadvantages.
According to him the ECOWAS leaders should have signed the agreement when they met in Ivory Coast instead of holding off the signing of the agreement last week, asking for time to resolve some ‘technical’ issues.
‘’We should have signed and moved on, the benefits of signing this agreement far exceed [the disadvantages,’’ he said on Saturday.
Critics and some anti-EPA Civil Society Organisations, including the Christian Council of Ghana and the Trades Union Congress (TUC) have all opposed the signing of the EPA.
But speaking on Citi FM’s news analysis and political programme, The Big Issue, Mr Casely-Hayford said assertions that the agreement will destroy the Ghanaian manufacturing and industry is false.
‘’I think that there is too much sentiment surrounding all of this; if you look at it from a purely business point of view, somebody is offering [Ghana and ECOWAS] the opportunity to get into a far bigger market than you can ever expect,’’ he noted.
He said instead of looking at the negative sides, we should look at the positive aspects and ‘’grow our non-traditional exports as well as improving our export market’’.
The EPA is an economic partnership agreement between the 16 West African states and the European Union (EU).
The agreement will involve reducing and removing import duties of European manufactured goods and also see Europe remove quotas, duties on African exports to the EU.
By: Evans Effah/citifmonline.com/Ghana