The Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, said the IMF bail-out alone could not get Ghana out of its current economic challenges unless it was accompanied by other assistance.

Speaking in his office during a courtesy call by Mr William Hanna, the EU Ambassador to Ghana, Dr Spio-Garbrah urged the EU and other development partners to come up with diverse funding packages for a number of projects in Ghana.

“This is because that is what will make the difference in the Ghanaian economy and give the private sector the courage to come in as partners of Ghana’s economic transformation,” he said.

Dr Spio-Garbrah said: “It is necessary for the IMF to commit to assisting Ghana to mobilise billions of additional funds from multilateral, bilateral and sovereign funds, family trusts and private equity sources”.

“We must be collectively bound to try and do this together to give additional comfort to foreign investors that Ghana is a safe place to invest,” he said.

Mr William Hanna pledged the support of the EU and its partners towards Ghana’s economic transformation.

The EU is Ghana’s biggest trading partner. In 2012, Ghana imported goods worth US$ 4.5 billion from the EU while it exported goods worth US$ 3.8 billion, accounting for 49 per cent of Ghana’s total exports in 2012.

According to Ghana and EU customs data, Ghana’s exports to the EU in 2013 were 35 per cent larger (US$ 4.6 billion) than imports from the EU (US$ 3.4 billion).

Ghana’s exports to the EU were dominated by petroleum oil exports worth US$2.5 billion, or 55 per cent of the country’s total exports to the EU.

Additionally, raw cocoa beans accounted for the next largest export of Ghana worth US$1billion, or 21 per cent of exports.

The EU is also a significant market for many of the priority non-traditional and horticultural exports identified in Ghana’s National Export Strategy 2013-2017, including processed cocoa (cocoa paste, butter and powder) US$ 432m; fish and seafood US$ 146m; pineapples US$ 46m; bananas US$ 52m; yams US$ 20m; mangoes US$ 12m; cashew nuts US$ 10m; fruit juice US$ 9m; and natural rubber US$ 35m.