The AfCFTA Secretariat is located in Ghana-West Africa
Government is working with the Ghana Reinsurance Commission and other insurance firms to offer sustainable support to shippers seeking to take advantage of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), Anthony Nyame-Baafi, Technical Advisor on Multilateral, Regional and Bilateral Trade at the Ministry of Trade and Industry, has said.
According to him, a number of local insurers have already expressed interest in the support mechanism to cover Ghanaian goods bound for the continental market against the risks of loss and damage.
“It has been observed that most of the imports that come to Ghana do not have insurance cover, with same for exports,” said Mr. Nyame-Baafi.
“Once this arrangement comes, Ghanaian produce for export to any of the African countries will be insured against all trade-related risks,” he told journalists at the 4th Ghana Insurance Awards in Accra.
He said government has listed insurance as one of five core service sectors—in addition to finance, transport and tourism— that it will prioritise and promote to boost the nation’s participation in the AfCFTA.
“Boosting these five core services areas is going to enhance services productivity across the continent because it is services that is leading the growth of all economies within the region.
Insurers who are well-versed in trade would be encouraged under this arrangement to expand their operations to other parts of the continent to take advantage of the market as other foreign insurers enter the domestic market,” Mr. Nyame-Baafi said.
With the commencement of trade in goods in the single market since January this year, the trade expert advised insurers to design tailored and innovative products that will entice the business community to do business with them.
“This will boost the local insurance industry because the more companies increase their productivity, the more the insurance cover will increase,” he said.
Mr. Nyame-Baafi called for partnerships among insurers to enable them build their competitiveness to provide insurance coverage to big-ticket transactions.
“What we see now is that more of them [insurance firms] do invite other players to insure bigger contracts as a risk-sharing mechanism. The more we see of these partnerships, the more the business community will become confident that they are in safe hands with their insured goods,” he noted