The increase, he said, reflected a rebound of the country’s export sector from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic which disrupted the global supply chain in 2020.

“The 2021 statistics gives us hope that we are on course. Our year-on-year earnings from 2018 have shown a positive trajectory.

 2018 and 2019 year-on-year a saw growth of about 10 percent, however, 2020 we saw a decline,” he emphasised.

The Deputy Minister disclosed this at the launch of the analysis of 2021 Non-Traditional Export statistics at the Ministry of Information in Accra yesterday.

The analysis presented an outlook of the country’s NTEssector for the year 2021.

MrKrapah said “Today we find that 2021 year-on-year we are increasing our numbers in terms of export earnings by 17 per cent that means we have moved it from $2 billion to $3.30 billion.”

This performance, he said, was outstanding and something that all Ghanaians must be proud of.

He explained that impact of these export earnings on the performance of the economy could not be lost on any Ghanaian, stressing that “We know that the positive impact that it can have on our Gross Domestic Product (GDP), exchange rate and of course inflation as well is huge.”

MrKrapah said the country currently had about 2 billion people in terms of preferential market size.

 “When we talk about the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCTA) we are talking about 1.3billion people. The interim economic partnership agreement with the European Union (EU) gives a market size of about 450 million people. 

African Growth and Opportunity  Act (AGOA) gives us a market opportunity of about 320 million people and of course we have just rectified trade partnership agreement with United Kingdom (UK) which gives us something like 65million people market size.

Therefore all put together, you are looking at a market size of more than 2 billion people. Plus the Asian market and non-preferential market” he emphasised.

MrKrapah said the responsibility of the Ministry of Trade and Industry was how to empower the private sector in terms of market intelligence to enhance its competitive suitability.

On her part, the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA), DrAfuaAsabeaAsare, said the sector was gradually bouncing back after having gone through 18 months of turbulence.

She said the quick rebound was largely due to a number of initiatives undertaken by her outfit and these initiatives include the launch of the one year online diploma in international trade to enable exporters scale up their knowledge.

Furthermore, she said the launch of the impact hub largely influenced the positive strides.

DrAsaresaid the main drivers of the NTEssector were agricultural, handicrafts and manufacturing products.

“The highest contributing subsector, processed and semi-processed products, accounted for about 84.35per cent to the total NTEs. The performance of this subsection experienced a rise in growth of 1788per cent in 2021 over the 2020 earnings,” she said.