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Dr George vanDyck, senior researcher focusing on governance, port clusters and competitiveness within Tema ports as part of the Port Efficiency and Public-Private Cooperation for Competitiveness (PEPP II) project, emphasized the need for for Ghana to establish an enabling business environment. conditions to compete effectively with Togo.
The PEPP II project, supported by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, seeks to provide policymakers with empirical data to inform decision-making processes aimed at promoting the blue economy and improving port efficiency.
“Lomé, in the early 2000s, manufactured between 2 and 300,000 TU, which is equivalent to between 2 and 300,000 thousand containers per year. Now it is manufacturing 1.5 million. Ghana, which was quite predominant at the beginning of the decade 2000, now it produces 1.2 million, that is, it is increasing, but not as fast as Togo is doing. So, there is a lot of competition. What do we have to do? People say that we are leaving the trade to Togo, yes, it’s about creating a conducive business environment.”
Dr. Abena Animwaa Yeboah-Banin, Head of the Department of Communication at the University of Ghana, clarified that the initiative will enable a broader spectrum of researchers to contribute to the maritime sector and the Blue Economy.
“It now allows a broader group of researchers to be interested in the maritime world, the blue economy. Many more researchers than were represented in the PEPP project. Now, for example, it is possible for people from engineering, fisheries and physics, whose works may have something to say to the Blue Economy to be interested and join the network so that a greater body of knowledge about the Blue Economy is produced that can feed policies and also work in industries:
Earlier, the Ghana Ports Authority (GPHA) expressed concern over the decline in traffic at the ports.
The drop in port traffic is of particular concern given the current financial constraints facing the government. With the country already grappling with a growing budget deficit and high levels of public debt, any further decline in revenue generation could deepen the economic challenges facing the country.
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