In 2025 the Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA) sponsored 60 businesses to exhibit at the 2025 International Handicrafts Week of Grand-Bassam in Côte d’Ivoire, which helped to bolster the country’s non-traditional export (NTE) sector.
The participation, led by GEPA, brought together exporters from the garments, handicrafts and cosmetics industries at the 10-day trade fair in Abidjan, providing local firms with access to buyers and distributors from across Africa.
The initiative came after Ghana’s NTEs fell 2.87% to $3.83 billion in 2024 from $3.94 billion a year earlier, largely due to a decline in iron and steel shipments caused by rising production costs, shortages of raw materials and electricity constraints in the Dawa Industrial Zone. The 24-hour economy can, however, turn this around to increase the growth of the sector through strategic allocation of resources.
While the downturn exposed the sector’s dependence on a narrow range of industrial products, the Grand-Bassam exhibition underscored Ghana’s strategy of expanding market opportunities for higher-value consumer goods, including fashion, handicrafts and cosmetics.
GEPA’s latest NTE Statistics Report showed that Ghana exported 609 products to 152 countries in 2024, generating $3.83 billion in earnings. Non-traditional exports accounted for 18.75% of Ghana’s total merchandise exports and recorded average annual growth of 6.01% between 2020 and 2024.
The authority’s efforts to promote Ghanaian products at regional trade fairs are aimed at strengthening the competitiveness of local exporters and broadening the country’s export base at a time when intra-African trade is gaining momentum.
The Grand-Bassam exhibition, organized by the Society for International African Art Foundation and the Network of Professionals Artisans of Africa, provided a platform for Ghanaian companies to showcase their products and establish commercial links in West Africa, one of the country’s most important export markets.
The participation also points to the growing role of trade promotion initiatives in supporting smaller exporters. Although 1,543 companies were involved in non-traditional exports in 2024, just 86 firms accounted for about 80% of the sector’s earnings, according to the GEPA report.
By increasing the visibility of Ghanaian brands in regional markets, the initiative could help diversify export revenues in 2026 and reduce the concentration of earnings among a small number of exporters as the country seeks to restore growth in its NTE sector.
