ISDS Case Map
Ghana
A sharp contrast exists in the views expressed by pineapple and poultry farmers on the Interim Economic Partnership Agreement, also known as EPA-lite, signed between the Government of Ghana and the European Union on December 13.
Nigeria, now predominantly an oil economy, would escape the imminent danger that would befall the largely agro-based products of Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire.
Ghana signed an interim trade deal with the European Union on Thursday, joining a rush among poor countries to safeguard exports to the world's biggest trading bloc after preferential terms expire at the end of the year.
A recent study by Realizing Rights, an ‘‘ethical globalisation'' body set up by the former UN commissioner for human rights and former Irish president Mary Robinson, forecasts that an EPA could harm Ghana's development prospects by narrowing its scope to create more and better-paid jobs.
The Ghana Trades Union Congress (GTUC) on Friday served notice to government that it would avail itself of all legal instruments to stop the signing and/or implementation of either the full Economic Partnership Agreement or the EPA-light.
Nigeria could also lose $680 million annually if the agreements were implemented, according to the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria
West Africa wants the EPA with the European Union to come into force on 1st January 2011 instead of January 2008 provided under the Cotonou partnership agreement. But what trading regime will apply after the expiration of the current trading system in December this year?
The Association of Ghana Industry (AGI) has added its voice to the clarion cry on African governments not to sign the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) or risk killing local industries.
Mr. Kwasi Adu-Amankwah, Secretary-General of the Trades Union Congress, said the leadership of organised labour had discussed the main issues of the EPA negotiations and concluded that the current efforts to negotiate a free and fair trade agreement between the world's single most powerful economic bloc and weaker economies was impossible.
For the last few years, the Ghanaian market has been flooded with cheap imported chicken from the European Union and the United States. These are usually fatty chicken parts that come in packages without labels. Demand for local poultry has collapsed, threatening the livelihoods of over 1,000 poultry farmers in both small and large-scale poultry farming in Ghana. The current situation will be compounded when the EPAs take effect in 2008 with the removal of tariffs across board.
