(4 minutes read)
· Ghana and the United Kingdom signed a trade agreement worth US$1.6 billion recently. Coming after Britain’s exit from the European Union, it is one of the latest deals between the two countries
· Earlier, Britain had entered a trade deal with Egypt (December 2020). Since BREXIT, Britain has been vigorously concluding trade deals with a number of countries including from Africa
· The agreement will come into operation upon both countries completing the internal procedures
Ghana and the United Kingdom signed a trade agreement worth US$1.6 billion recently. Coming after Britain’s exit from the European Union, it is one of the latest deals between the two countries. Earlier, Britain had entered a trade deal with Egypt (December 2020).Since BREXIT, Britain has been vigorously concluding trade deals with a number of countries including from Africa.
Amongst other things, the trade deal will allow duty-free and quota-free access for Ghana to the UK market with preferential tariff reductions for UK exporters to the Ghanaian market. The products from Ghana, which holds promise for entering into the British market include bananas, tinned tuna and cocoa. Since these products can enter with zero tariffs, they can price out similar products from other countries being sold in Britain.
Significantly, as a prelude to exiting EU, Britain set up UK Economic Partnerships with 16 African countries to continue with its trade with these countries. These pacts are more or less the same as that of the EU, exempting exports from Africa paying the tariff. Ghana, however, was not included in the bilateral trade treaty before Britain leaving the EU, which made products from Ghana more costly in the British market and they were also made to do extra paper works at the customs.
Ghana’s largest exports to Britain include mineral fuels and oil, preparations of fish, fruit and cocoa. The agreement will come into operation upon both countries completing the internal procedures. Britain is attaching a lot of importance to trade with African countries. Analysts, however, say that the priorities before Britain would be to push trade deals with the EU, United States, China, South Korea and Australia ahead of Africa.
