Women entrepreneurs attend conference on AfCFTA

Mr Mark Badu-Aboagye, the Chief Executive Officer, Ghana National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GNCCI), has encouraged women entrepreneurs to create demand for their products to fully access the opportunities of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

He said the African Free Trade Area created a single market of more than 1.2 billion people, but entrepreneurs ought to create demand for products and position themselves to export to benefit from the prospects.

Mr Badu-Aboagye was addressing a women's conference in Tamale on the AfCFTA, on the theme: “Making AfCFTA Work through a Deliberate Inclusion of Women”.

It was organised by the GNCCI through its women’s wing with support from the GIZ Trade Hub to explore opportunities for Ghanaian businesses.

It is an initiative aimed at enabling seamless trade among African nations.

It brought together entrepreneurs from northern Ghana to deliberate and share challenges they encountered as business owners.

Mr Badu-Aboagye said creating market demand for entrepreneurs on the Free Trade Area required knowledge on its operations, hence the conference was to sensitise
participants on how the AfCFTA worked.

He said women should be empowered to trade more and take advantage of AfCFTA’s opportunities to alleviate deprivation, saying the agreement was expected to move over 50 million people out of poverty by 2030.

Dr Mrs Emelia Assiakwa, the National Treasurer of GNCCI, said the World Bank report for 2021 said women entrepreneurs dominated the private sector, therefore a need to assist them and the youth to understand the details of opportunities and challenges presented by the Agreement.

The conference was meant to furnish women with vital information on the AfCFTA, including the opportunities and strategies for their optimisation, rules of origin, export financing and export readiness, she said.

Mr Hamidi Hamza Saana, the Northern Regional Director, Ministry of Trade and Industry, said the country needed to inspire a surge in more successful women entrepreneurs to fast-track socio-economic development.

He urged participants to table a feasible path for sustainable growth and development for women groups within the context of the Agreement’s protocols.

Madam Esther Nabiiri, the Founder of Agape Moringa Processing, said being part of GNCCI created an avenue for her to trade across countries which also made it easy to obtain a certificate of origin for exports.