Seth Twum Akwaboah
SETH TWUM Akwaboah, Chief Executive Officer of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), has advised Micro Small Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) to embrace the concept of aggregation designed to rope Ghanaian MSMEs onto the business of intra Africa trade under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement.
He explained that majority of MSMEs did not have the requisite capacity to export in large quantities and might also lack the technical know-how to export their wares when the free trade agreement takes effect.
He therefore urged them to collaborate with export companies which would be set up to act as intermediaries between Ghanaian MSMEs and other potential customers on the African continent.
“You will have some major traders who will set up business of exporting to other African countries and they will come to individual enterprise like you, pick your products in small quantities and aggregate it for bigger volumes and export,” he said.
Mr. Akwaboah was speaking on Monday in Accra at the MSME Market Fair organized by the AGI in conjunction with the National Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI) and the Mastercard Foundation under the Young Africa Works Initiative.
The three-day event, held under the theme, “Building Resilience and Local Capacity for African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA)”, formed part of initiatives to access the preparedness of Ghanaian MSMEs to take advantage the AfCFTA agreement which was to be implemented in January 2021.
Implementation is expected to remove trade barriers and also reduce associated cost of intra African trade which would ingenuously improve productivity and promote competitiveness.
Deputy Executive Director of NBSSI, Anna Armo-Himbson, who delivered a speech on behalf of the Executive Director, Kosi Yankey-Ayeh, said improving access to markets for MSMEs had been a major consideration for the board in designing its Business Acceleration Programme which aimed to leverage on trade shows and exhibitions to boost sales, youth engagement and networking.
She further reiterated the need for mobilizing an effective sales force that would be in charge of marketing locally produced good across the continent and “these efforts should put premium on women owned MSMEs which formed majority of businesses in Ghana.”
Mrs. Armo-Himbson urged participants to use the platform to promote their brands and create a customer database of visitors.
“Build network for the promotion of your businesses, market and publicize your businesses and acquire new partners and employees and conduct market research” she said.
By Issah Mohammed