Accra, July 4, GNA - Poor packaging accounts for the appalling performance of Ghanaian products in both the domestic and international markets, Ms Hanna Tetteh, Minister of Trade and Industry, said on Monday.

"Packaging has been identified as one of the major reasons for the failure of locally manufactured goods to compete favourably with imported goods," she said.

Ms Tetteh was speaking at a six-day regional packaging training programme organised by the International Trade Centre (ITC) and the Institute of Packaging, Ghana (IOPG) in Accra. The programme, which has attracted participants from Ghana, Kenya and Uganda, is under the theme: 93Maximising Export Performance through Better Packaging Solutions."

Ms Tetteh expressed dissatisfaction that packaging was at its elementary stage in the country saying inadequate packaging contributed to product damage and post-harvest loss. "Micro and small-scale enterprises re-use post-consumption packages such as corrugated boxes, sacks, glass and plastic bottles to package products. Newsprint, stationery, wicker baskets, jute bags, wooden crates and leaves are still widely used as packaging materials."

Ms Tetteh attributed the situation to inadequate or old fashioned technology and machinery, inadequate skills, high cost of imported packaging materials and absence of reliable source of credible data on the packaging industry.

She described the training programme as timely and expressed the hope that it would 93mark the beginning of a packaging revolution in Ghana, Kenya and Uganda resulting in the transformation of locally manufactured products that will compete favourably with any other on the global market".

Ms Tetteh was optimistic that the knowledge and expertise gained from the programme would enable the participants to design innovative, cost effective and environmentally friendly packaging. Speaking on government's Private Sector Development Strategy programme under her ministry, she said a Board would soon be inaugurated to inject efficiency into its activities. Mr Jacky Charbonneau, Director at the Enterprise Competitiveness Section of the ITC, said its mission was to build the capacity of trade support partners and institutions on macro, middle and micro levels.

Mr Kofi M. Essuman, President of IOPG, said the organisation was established in 2003 with the mission to provide world-class professional training and packaging services to individuals and organisations operating in the packaging and trade sectors. He said IOPG also provided training advocacy, business advisory, research and consultancy services to the packaging and trade sectors. Mr Essuman said his organisation would establish a packaging resource centre to carry out packaging development, package design, package testing and evaluation in response to demand in the industry. Mrs Eunice Adams, Director of the Women in Agriculture division of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, underscored the importance of packaging in agriculture, stressing that it enhanced the shell life and safety of farm produce.