Ghana Commodity Exchange hints of measures to trade in cash crops

• The country, in some few months, will start trading in cash crops to rope in more revenue

• The CEO of the Ghana Commodities Exchange says plans are in place to start trading in commodities such as vegetables

• She also said selected commodities will soon start to be aggregated

Tucci Goka Ivowi, CEO of the Ghana Commodity Exchange (GCX), has stated that her outfit is planning to trade in cash crops and also go international in the next phase of development projects outlined.

According to her, the exchange presently trades in grains only within Ghana and has 10 warehouses across the country which are being used to run the aggregation and storage of food products.

Speaking at a press briefing in Accra on Sunday organized by the Ministry of Information, Mrs Ivowi said there is the need to establish more infrastructure which can help in trading commodities such as vegetables.

“We have started with grains so far, but we need to build the requisite infrastructure, and then we can start to trade in commodities like veggies [and] fruits, which have a lot of demand,” she said

Mrs Ivowi also added that her outfit has formed strategic partnerships with funding organizations in the country for the aggregation of selected commodities in its warehouses currently.

She explained that, the state-owned Venture Capital Trust Fund, is providing a GH¢5 million facility while the Rural Development Fund Ghana (RDF Ghana) has established a GH¢1 million credit line for soy and maize aggregation, with the potential to increase the amount to GH¢10 million to fund other commodities and brokers in the coming years.

Mrs Ivowi further stated that the FBN Bank has agreed to extend a GH¢6 million facility to pre-finance aggregation of cashew as well as train networked farmers about the exchange’s operations to make it easy in generating more revenues and expanding the scope of trade.

Meanwhile, she noted that the exchange is open to more public-private partnerships and there are plans in place to expand to other markets.