Ghana has screened more than 1,000 small and medium enterprises for export across Africa under the continental free trade pact, the Trade Ministry said Thursday, with shortlisted firms now receiving targeted training.
Benjamin Asiam, acting head of the National Coordination Office at the Ministry of Trade, Agribusiness and Industry, disclosed the figure during a Channel One TV discussion on how Ghanaian businesses can win under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), held on June 11 as part of the Citi Business Festival.
The screening sorted candidates into three groups: firms already selling small and medium enterprise (SME) goods within Africa, exporters serving markets outside the continent that could redirect some trade inward, and local producers with room to grow. “More than 1,000 SMEs were screened,” Asiam said, adding that shortlisted firms received training in different areas.
The programme has substance behind it. At the Intra African Trade Fair roadshow in Accra last June, Trade Minister Elizabeth Ofosu Adjare said the same Market Expansion Programme was giving direct support to individual firms, covering market readiness, AfCFTA rules of origin, and trade finance. Ghana has also taken businesses on trade expeditions to Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda to negotiate supply contracts.
Asiam said the capacity drive followed a national policy framework and action plan drawn up after the agreement took effect, and was later paired with the Guided Trade Initiative, the pilot scheme under which Ghana and seven other countries tested AfCFTA trading rules in practice.
The gap the programme must close remains wide. A 2024 study of 250 SMEs registered with the Ghana National Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Cape Coast found most firms could innovate but had limited knowledge of export documentation, trade information and trade finance, the basics any exporter needs before a single container moves.
The stakes for Ghana go beyond individual firms. The country hosts the AfCFTA Secretariat in Accra, and the bloc offers access to a market of more than 1.4 billion people with a combined GDP above three trillion dollars. Whether screened SMEs convert that access into orders will be the real test of the programme.
