Accra, July 11, GNA - Comprehensive anti-smuggling and anti-dumping measures to enhance the competitiveness of locally produced goods would be introduced before the end of the year. The Ministry of Trade, Industry and President's Special Initiative and other stakeholders would carry out the exercise in conjunction with the Customs Excise and Preventive Services (CEPS). A Deputy Minister of Trade, Industry and President's Special Initiative, Mr. Kwadwo Affram Asiedu announced this on Friday at the closing ceremony of a three-week training workshop for senior CEPS officials. It was dubbed, "Advanced Harmonised Commodity Description and Coding System Training". He said the Ghana Standards Board (GSB), has been appointed by the government to inspect imported high-risk goods with effect from August this year, efforts to minimize the influx of shoddy products that are either imported or smuggled into the country. About 32 officers, including trainers and operational officials from the entire country attended the workshop. It was aimed at equipping them with the requisite skills to be able to properly identify and correctly classify international products that are brought into the country, in line with World Trade Organisation (WTO) requirements and to maximize revenue collection trade in Ghana. Mr Affram Asiedu expressed the hope that the officers would detect the malpractices of importers who deliberately misclassified their goods under a different customs code to attract a lower or zero rate of duty. He said the effectiveness of measures to check smuggling and importation of shoddy products depended largely on the integrity and co-operation of CEPS officials. Brigadier Richardson Baiden, Commissioner of CEPS, said the drive towards trade facilitation and increased foreign investment would greatly be enhanced if products in international trade were properly identified and correctly classified. He said that was why about 98 per cent of goods that entered international trade were classified according to the harmonized commodity description and coding system, adding, "this system forms the basis of Customs Tariff Nomenclature in Ghana". Brigadier Baiden commended the Inspection Control Services (ICS), a US service provider, for collaborating with CEPS to train officers to be able to provide accurate classification of goods. Mr David Christian, General Manager of ICS, said the training programme, which is in line with the "Destination Inspection Programme" initiated in 2000, was adopted with the objective of increasing the overall rate of import declaration compliance and the reduction of fraud, fiscal evasion and price discrimination.