Dr Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, Minister of Trade and Industry, has charged manufacturers to apply barcodes technologies to their products to be able to compete, secure and maintain an export market the global market.

He said increasing competition amongst developing countries for export market means that buyers are able to insist on the application of quality standards as a condition for entry into the market.

He said the trend has the potential to margilise many developing countries.

He said to avert this, developing countries must be able to integrate into the global economy by producing and selling goods in accordance with global standards.

Dr Spio-Garbrah said this in a speech read on his behalf in Accra during the commemoration of the 10th anniversary of GS1 Business Agency.

He said since the launch of GS1 in Ghana, more than 1000 companies have now being issued with internationally recognised barcodes and approximately 50 per cent of these companies are active.

"Unfortunately, statistics will show that our SME’s which form the bulk of businesses in Ghana neglect to apply bar code technologies to their products due to ignorance, they therefore do this at their peril since it may result in the marginalisation of their performance in the global market.

"It is therefore important to stress at this point that bar codes are a complement to the existing general labelling laws in Ghana but not only domestic laws must be complied with, since many importing countries apply extremely stringent labelling laws,’’ he added.

He said in order to supply food products to the major international markets, business must comply with these food safety and traceability standards, requiring the implementation of complex informational systems and electronic data capture technology.