Palm oil, malt extract and 3 others make up Ghana’s highest export potential under AfCFTA – Report reveals
A report by CUTS Ghana, has revealed the various products with the highest export potential to the African market under African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) for Ghana.
The report titled, Assessment of Ghanaian Private Sector Readiness for AfCFTA Implementation, in enumerating the products with the highest export potential for the country assessed Ghanaian companies using five criteria namely; firms’ ability to compete, firms’ ability to innovate, the productive capabilities of firms, firms’ ability to export, and the knowledge about the AfCFTA.
Based on its five criteria assessment, CUTS Ghana concluded that malt extract, palm oil (excl crude) & fractions, and uncooked pasta are the products that make up the country’s highest export potential under the AfCFTA.
According to CUTS Ghana, Ghana has the highest supply capacity in cocoa beans whereas Palm oil (excl crude) & fractions is the product that faces the strongest demand potential in Africa.
The Group however, notes that there is a huge gap in Ghana’s export potential to Africa that must be addressed as far as the AfCFTA is concerned.
With a total competitiveness score of 51.2 percent, the Group asserts that Ghana is competitive compared to its neighbouring countries – Togo, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso.
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Ghana, it says will however, find it difficult to compete with South Africa, Egypt, Morocco, and Kenya in light of AfCFTA implementation.
CUTS Ghana adds that, Ghanaian businesses are confronted with challenges including power reliability, the difficulty of trading across borders, access to ICT, ICT, difficulty of starting a business, high cost of capital, among others which will affect their capacity to produce and export to other African countries under the AfCFTA.
The assessment of the readiness of Ghana’s private sector for the implementation of the AfCFTA, CUTS Ghana notes, is to assist Ghana develop a roadmap to help stakeholders access the benefits of the AfCFTA and see how best to mitigate the challenges to be faced by some sectors.
The study by CUTS Ghana was conducted from October 2019 to March 2020. It was based on a sample of 120 firms selected randomly from three highly dominated private sector regions, including Greater Accra, Ashanti and Western regions.
Five private sectors were selected for the study, including the pharmaceutical and herbal industry, the tourism and hospitality industry, the food and beverages industry, the agri-business industry and garment, the leather and textiles industries.
