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Business News for Thursday, January 14, 2021
Source: laudbusiness.com
2021-01-14
Welcome Mene, First Secretary General of the AfCFTA
Almost a week after the start of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), Ghanaian businesses, both small and large, have been tasked with being proactive in taking steps to participate and fully benefit from the continental agreement.
Negotiation under the deal was supposed to have started in July 2020, but had to be postponed until January 2021.
Despite the delay in startup, awareness of the deal and its inherent benefits among businesses, especially those in the informal sector, is woefully low.
Despite the publicity surrounding the AfCFTA, data from the Ghana Statistical Service shows that only 134,000 businesses are currently aware of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement, accounting for 26.2 percent of the companies nationwide.
Speaking to Citi Business News about the types of businesses that will benefit from the deal, the chief strategist of AfroChampions, a regional public-private partnership that promotes impactful regional investments by African multinationals, Michael Kottoh called for more information on the government deal. and other stakeholders involved in the agreement in Ghana.
“I mean that all types of companies are qualified to trade under the AfCFTA, both small and large companies. Most importantly, Ghanaian companies try to obtain from the government the list of products that Ghana has negotiated to market under the agreement. That is the most important. Not all products necessarily qualify to be marketed under the agreement. The second thing is to understand the different countries in Africa that currently trade under the agreement because not all African countries are joining the start of trade right away.
“The third thing they need to know is trying to understand exactly what the export processes are like. If, for example, I want to export some shea butter from Ghana to Kenya, what exactly is the process that I have to go through? By process I mean what are the tariffs that are being applied under the agreement for this particular product and what do I need to do to get the product to Kenya. We need more information from the government and key agencies involved in this. But companies must also be proactive and try to obtain as much information as possible, “he added.
