The Ghana International Trade Commission (GITC) has intensified its efforts in curbing all unfair arrangements working against local trade industries involved in the importation of goods.
Aluworks Ghana Limited, which is the sole manufacturer of aluminum products in Ghana, is almost collapsing due to unfair practices such as the sale of imported aluminum coils and circles cheaper than what they produce.
After Aluworks petitioned GITC and thorough investigations were conducted, the Commission has put before government, some recommendations aimed at protecting Ghanaian industries against unfair competition.
These include the imposition of a 35.77 percent anti-dumping duty on imported aluminum products.
The Executive Secretary of the Commission, Frank Agyekum, speaking to Citi Business News said, ‘Most of the time, local industries from our parts of the country are unable to survive. They set up and then they collapse.”
“Investigations have shown that many of these are due to unfair trading practices. In terms of WTO practices, unfair trading practices is known as dumping and dumping is referred to a situation where commodities are imported into the country and in spite of paying freight charges and custom duties and all the stuff, they come here and are sold at prices cheaper than what is being sold in their home country. So under the WTO regulation, we are able to seek remedy for the industries involved. In this case, Aluworks was the first to petition since we set up, and we reached a resolution for their matter because there was clear evidence that dumping was happening which has led to Aluworks being so uncompetitive. The company is almost at a collapsing stage.”
Click here to read the full report on Aluwork’s petition.
Aluworks in trouble
Aluworks Ghana Limited had earlier appealed to government to protect local aluminium companies against foreign ones that import cheap aluminium into the country.
According to them, the non-implementation of the right laws has made it possible for Chinese companies operating in Ghana to charge lower prices for goods they trade in on the Ghanaian market.
The development they fear if not checked, will bring the company down on its knees.
On the back of this, GITC assured the public that it will recommend solutions to government on how to curb unfair competition practices.