tiffany engagement rings economic integration

Posted by yixue327
1
Jun 14, 2010
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As part of the ERP, Ghana in 1984 began to open up its economy to participate in international trade. The policy thrust was towards the development and promotion of non-traditional exports (NTEs) whilst maintaining the country's competitiveness in the traditional export sector. NTEs in this regard refer to crops that prior to the ERP did not have any significant export value. These include horticultural products such as pineapples, papaya, mangoes, various vegetables and condiments, cashew, yam, sheabutter; fish and sea foods as well as some game and wildlife products. The contribution made by non-traditional exports to GDP has been increasing on annual basis possibly due to promotion and support the sector receives from government and the declining terms of trade for traditional tiffany pendants exports. In 2004 for example, the agricultural sector comprising mainly of Cocoa, Timber and NTEs accounted for 37.9% of the total GDP whereas industry, services and indirect taxes were represented by 24.7% and 28.6% and 8.8% respectively (Ghana Statistical Service, 2005). The NTE sector alone contributed 23.7% of the total foreign exchange earnings from agriculture (Ghana Export Promotion Council, 2005) with the remaining coming from the traditional cocoa and timber sub-sectors. Horticultural products most especially pineapples continue to be the leading contributor (40%) to export receipts from agricultural NTEs in Ghana (Ghana Export Promotion Council, 2005). While export volumes and foreign exchange earnings of horticultural exports have increased significantly over the years, the economic feasibility of the export booms on the livelihood of smallholders in rural Ghana is not clearly understood.

Based on the Ricardian comparative advantage principle and the Heckcher-Ohlin trade theory, various studies have shown that countries can improve the growth and welfare of its citizens by opening up their borders to freer trade based. Furthermore, there is a worldwide move toward tiffany engagement rings economic integration, the EU being the most prominent example. Not only is it foreseen that this movement will improve welfare of the country but it's competitiveness could also improve by generating foreign exchange earnings and fiscal revenues, to increase the income of smallholders, and to provide employment for the rural poor.

To this end, policy makers in developing countries have in recent years been concerned with the economic and political risks associated with heavy dependence on specialized raw materials as main sources of government revenue and foreign elsa exchange. Development partners and donor agencies have equally extolled the need for these countries to diversify their export base as a poverty alleviation strategy. In this light, several African countries have tended to expand their foreign trade portfolio by focusing on non-traditional exports which reflect their comparative advantage and for many countries the export of horticultural crops has been favored. Consequently, several reasons have been advanced for the boom in horticultural exports from Africa over the past decade (Jaffee, 1995; Barrett et al., 1997; Dixie, 1999; Malter et al., 1999).
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