Ghana-Turkey trade hits $500m
The trade relations between Ghana and Turkey now stands at $500 million from less than $100 million five years ago. The two countries intend to increase the trade volume between them and have set a target of one billion dollars by 2015.
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“This is not a one-way trade, it is both ways. Turks are buying from Ghana and Ghanaians are buying from Turkey,” said Ghana’s Ambassador to Turkey, Mr Alhaji Ibrahim Abass.
He made this known on the sides of the first Turkey-Africa Women Entrepreneurs Trade Bride, organised by the Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists of Turkey (TUSKON) in Istanbul, Turkey, last week.
“Trade volumes between Ghana and Turkey has been increasing”, said Mr Abass, based on statistics of trade estimates from TUSKON, an organisation which represents seven business federations and 211 business associations in Turkey put together eight years ago.
Part of the success, Mr Abass mentioned, was due to the establishment of the Ghana Embassy in Ankara, the administrative capital of Turkey, a year and a half ago.
“The co-coperation is based mainly on economic co-coperation where trade and investment is key and has resulted in interaction of Ghanaian business community with the Turkish business community but so far since the embassy opened here, the trend of business delegations had been men,” he said.
On the importance of the conference, he was happy the focus was on women as Turkey was yet to be open up to women business entrepreneurs in Ghana.
The Managing Director of NDL Microfinance and Clothing Company, Mrs Leticia Afful, one of the delegates among the 20 business women and men participating in the conference, said she was happy to have met other women entrepreneurs in Turkey and had established business relations with some manufacturers.
She said, “I have been importing cloths from the UK but I found out that some of the products were supplied from Turkey and so I was buying at retail prices”.