Mr. Hebert Krapa, the Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry has reiterated the commitment of the government to strengthening the capacity of the Creative Arts sector to promote development.
He said, “if we promote our art, we bring alive our heritage.”
Mr. Krapa was speaking at the second edition of the “Sound Out” Premium Art Exhibition organized by the Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA), the Ghana Tourism Authority, and the Beyond the Return Initiative.
Other partners supporting the week-long exhibition are the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre and the Ghana Exim Bank.
The exhibition, which starts on August 21 and ends on August 27, 2021, has 32 exceptional talents exhibiting.
Total earning from the industrial art and craft subsector in 2019 was 14.5 million dollars, from 12.8 million dollars in 2018
He said Artists were essentially traditional bearers; they carry the beautiful and cultural significance of a community or country modeled and shaped by many generations before and transpose them to contemporary times.
The Deputy Minister said under the leadership of President Nana Akufo-Addo, the Creative Arts Fund bill was passed into law, and the new Creative Arts Agency was established to support the arts industry in Ghana.
He said the implementation of the ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme and trade facilitation policies developed by the Ministry has contributed tremendously to the overall growth in the Industrial Arts and craft sub-sector.
Mr. Krapa said the Ministry would continue to support GEPA and other partnering agencies to deliver on its mandate of enhancing the capacities of industry players to promote export and export diversification.
He entreated all artists and curators to fully participate in the forthcoming Intra- African Trade Fair 2021 to be held in Durban, from November 15 to November 21, 2021.
Nana Asante Bediatuo, Executive Secretary, Office of the President, commended GEPA for working on their mandate to support Ghana’s Industrial Art and Craft Sector.
He said it was time the country paid much more attention to using platforms such as these to nurture the Art industry and strengthen businesses to have a solid footing in the African Continental Free Trade Area.
He said the convenience and efficiency that technology presented this generation was not expected to put an end to creative manual work.
“Indeed, it rather presents a means for these alluring works, to have a far-reaching global audience with the power of the internet,” he added.
Dr. Afua Asabea Asare, Chief Executive Officer, GEPA said the interventions they support as an agency, were mainly to boost the quality and production capacity of the export sectors, to enable them to meet demands that result from them making noise about “Export Ghana Export More.”
She said their support was aligned to one of the key pillars of Ghana’s National Export Development Strategy which was launched in the last quarter of 2020.
The Strategy’s objective is to achieve a revenue of 25.3 billion dollars by the year 2029.
“We will only be able to achieve this if we harness resources and focus on the key pillars which have been well thought out,” she added.
She said the Art Exhibition aligned with the third pillar which was to build capacity for industrial export development and marketing.
The CEO said the intention was to build this Sound Out platform to a level where Artists on the Continent would be clamoring to showcase their pieces at this annual festival.