The AfCFTA Secretariat is located in Ghana-West Africa
The Ghana Shippers’ Authority (GSA) has advised shippers to take advantage of the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) and source their goods from the closer markets in a bid to avoid delays in the arrival as well as high freight cost.
According to the GSA, the advice is to help them maximize their profit amidst the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the shipping and logistics industry.
This came up at the 66th Central Regional Shipper Committee meeting in Cape Coast which focused on the impact of the Global Shortage of Containers on Ghana’s shipping industry which took place at the Oguaa Teachers’ Cooperative Credit Union Conference Hall.
The shippers were informed that as a result of a myriad of supply chain challenges, the issues of global container shortage is likely to linger for a while and therefore they would have to be innovative in their operations to avoid incurring cost which would decrease their profit.
Some important decisions in container fleet management included fleet sizing, container leasing, laden container distributing and empty container repositioning but the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a lot of bottlenecks in these factors and therefore global supply chains.
A Principal Freight and Logistics Officer at the GSA, Abdul Haki Bashiru-Dine, said apart from sourcing goods from closer markets, other solutions to the current challenge include, improvement of port efficiency, enhance trade facilitation, finding a digital solution to improve information flow efficiency and minimize the incidence of uncleared cargos at the port.
He believes if these are done diligently, it would bring some relief to players in the sector.
The sensitization formed part of the Central Regional Shipper Committee activities of the Authority.
The Central Regional Shipper Committee is a platform created by the GSA to bring together all stakeholders in the shipping value chain to discuss challenges to shipping in Ghana and to find innovative solutions to these challenges.
In all, over forty (40) representatives from key stakeholders in the shipping value chain participated in the sensitization event.