One of the ways Ghanaian exporters can increase access to funding as they explore existing opportunities within the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is for them to form strategic business alliances, Kobla Nyaletey, Director of Markets of Absa Bank Ghana and Nigeria has said.
He believes such a move will save businesses in export trade by reducing operational cost, equitable risks, and improve strategies towards revamping their export activities.
Mr. Nyaletey explained that with the implementation of AfCFTA, the practice where Ghanaian businesses fail to find like-minded firms to partner with and pull resources together for mutual benefit ought to become a thing of the past.
“To take advantage and win [with AfCFTA], I think exporters need to consider forming alliances,” Kobla Nyaletey said on the on-air series of the Citi Business Festival on the Citi Breakfast Show as he discussed ‘Financing the AfCFTA opportunity.’
According to him, the skills of exporters and their abilities to achieve economies of scale, competitive price, and deliver goods and services with acceptable standards remain critical in the implementation of the agreement among African firms.
He thus advised that “for exporters who are not operating at scale at the moment, and who need to grow in the level of their delivery, they should be able to potentially explore strategic partnerships to buy skills and buy expertise.”
While expressing Absa Bank’s readiness to support entrepreneurs in the export value chain, Mr. Nyaletey urged exporters not to look at the AfCFTA opportunity only at the level of production, but also view it at the level of trade aggregation and distribution.
“If we have a couple of producers who do not have the level of volumes required by say, an importer in South Africa, it should be possible for other aggregators to easily come together and join forces to be able to meet the demands of the buyers.”
“Ghanaian exporters must have a scalability mind. AfCFTA is about markets expanding and operating at a level. So it is important to acquire these because when they do all of these, they look bigger to be able to manage the risks that come along with international trade better than smaller entities,” Kobla Nyaletey emphasized.
About the Citi Business Festival
The Citi Business Festival is an extensive program of business events and on-air activities providing inspiration, business ideas, and information to persons who are starting, building, or growing their businesses.
The virtual business fora are live on Citi TV every Tuesday from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm.
The radio on-air series is themed to correspond with the various virtual forums at 9:20 am every weekday.
It is sponsored by Absa Bank Ghana with support from IT Consortium and the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) and also powered by Citi FM, Citi TV, and Ghana’s most comprehensive business news website, www.citibusinessnews.com.
Nii Larte Lartey/citinewsroom.com