Ghana’s small business see opportunity in African free trade area
Ghana is one of the first countries to take advantage of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). That opens a potentially huge market for small businesses. To tap into it, they need to add value to their goods to meet the demands of the African market and connect to businesses outside the country.
Explaining that process is the goal of ‘How to Export with the AfCFTA’ workshop, which the International Trade Centre (ITC) recently conducted in Accra, Ghana.
‘The AfCFTA has created opportunities for companies who want to go beyond the boundaries of Ghana, but they need to know the rules and potential challenges,’ said Larry Attipoe, National Coordinator for the ITC’s Alliances for Action value chain work in Ghana. ‘The workshop aimed to expose them to that and give them practical tools to navigate.’
Focus on growing small businesses through African trade
Most of the participants work in cocoa and coffee, with a few beauty, cosmetics and fashion entrepreneurs as well. The workshop unpacked how to leverage AfCFTA’s myriad opportunities.
The training looked at the fundamentals of intra-Africa trade and how to add value to their goods so they find more buyers around the continent.
‘This is the most practical session I’ve had on the AfCFTA,’ Christabel Ofori, CEO of Afcallo Ventures, which makes beauty products. ‘It was a step-by-step process on how to export, market research, and making sure that our products become compliant in the target market.’
The four-day event also had a session to prepare new Ghanaian trainers to conduct their own workshops, expanding the programme’s reach. The new trainers represented institutions such as the Ghana Export Promotion Authority, the Ghana National AfCFTA Coordination Office, the Organisation of Women in International Trade (OWIT- Ghana), the Ghana Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Ghana Enterprises Agency (GEA), among others.
Expert insights on new markets for Ghana
The workshop was collaborative effort. From ITC, it included the One Trade Africa Initiative, the Alliances for Action programme in Ghana, and the SME Trade Academy. Ghana is a member of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), bringing the participation of the ECOWAS Commission. The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) was the third partner.
Ismael Amadou Tidjani, trade facilitation expert at the ECOWAS Commission, said the workshop aligns with the regional bloc’s goals set out in its Vision 2050 and its AfCFTA implementation strategy.
Divine Kutortse heads the enterprise support and trade in finance programme at the Ghana National AfCFTA Coordination Office. He said Ghanaian coffee and cocoa products have an enormous opportunity in the African market. He provided comprehensive information on how to fully utilize this opportunity.
‘Honestly I have been enlightened about so many things about exports, which is going to carry me and my business a long way,’ said Evelyn Okuley, CEO of All Save Chocolates.
Wisdom Tawiah from Afreximbank also reiterated his commitment to promoting intra-African trade. He encouraged participants to position Ghanaian businesses as leaders in cocoa and coffee marketing.
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About the project
‘How to Export with the AfCFTA’ is a training programme developed jointly by ITC and Afreximbank and rolled out across the continent’s five sub-regions. The in-country workshops in the ECOWAS region are delivered together with the ECOWAS Commission. ITC and Afreximbank have also established a complementary free online training platform which has trained over 10,000 SMEs.
