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The Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA) has suspended plans to exhibit and market the country's non-traditional products in West Africa due to the emergence of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), which has claimed over 4,500 lives within the past 11 months. The authority has cancelled Ghana�s participation in exhibition fairs in five West African countries - Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, Liberia and C�te d'Ivoire � in line with directions from local and global health institutions that people cut down on conferences as efforts to stop the pandemic continues. The cancellation and other Ebola preparedness measures mean that companies that do non-traditional exports (NTEs) in the country will have less opportunities this year to sell and market their wares to foreign clients. The impact will be a reduction in their respective sales, leading to a drop in national earnings from the sector, the Chief Executive Officer of the GEPA, Mr Gideon Quarcoo, said in an interview. "On the advice of the authorities from those countries, we had to cancel our participations in those fairs. That means, people were very nervous about the whole thing and that will affect us here in Ghana," Mr Quarcoo told the GRAPHIC BUSINESS after this year's National Awards for Export Achievement held on October 17. "It is going to cost us a lot of export earnings because our solo fairs are the ones that make the most money because the people are able to sell in volumes. Look, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Burkina Faso and C�te d'Ivoire are countries exhibitors normally make lots of money from because they are able to sell. We were going to participate in the SIAO Fair (in Burkina Faso) and Ghana was supposed to be the guest country but we have cancelled all that because of this Ebola," the CEO added. EVD was first reported in Guinea in December last year but later spread to Liberia and Sierra Leone, where it has since been severe. The virus is contagious and as a result spread to Nigeria, Senegal, Spain and USA after some people had come into contact with EVD patients. As a result, the movements of people have been restricted and gatherings reduced as part of efforts aimed at containing the disease. However good that was, the CEO of the export authority said he was optimistic the development would have a negative impact on earnings from NTEs, which was US$2.43 billion in 2013. "The authorities in these countries kept telling us to postpone the fairs and we initially thought that it will be heldon but at later dates. But as it is now, it is obvious we are not going to have those fairs and that surely represents significant losses in earnings to the country and I'm sure many of our exporters are heart broken," he said. Mrs Margaret Twneboa-Boateng, the Chief Executive Officer of Excel Industries Limited, an indigenous manufacturer and exporter of aluminium and household utensils to the subregion, confirmed in a separate interview that the disease had caused a drop in the sales of companies exporting to the subregion. "I have a lot of customers in Togo and Guinea and because of the outbreak, they are not able to come. Even when they come, my staff and I are always scared to take the money or even get closer to them," she said, adding that her revenues had already started dropping. Mrs Twneboa-Boateng, who has been in the business for the past 20 years, was adjudged the Woman Exporter of 2013 at the awards show. As part of her price, Fidelity Bank Ghana, which supported the event with cash, gave her a cheque for GH�1,000 in addition to a memento and citation from GEPA, the organiser of the awards show. The coveted prize, Exporter of the Year, went to Niche Cocoa Ghana Limited, an indigenous cocoa processor based in Tema. Forty-one other awards were also given to distinguished individuals and institutions for their contributions to the growth of the export business, which led to a rise in earnings from NTEs sector.