President of the Ghana Bankers Association, Alhassan Andani says Ghanaian businesses should be innovate in their operations to be able to expand their market base beyond the borders of the country.
This, he says, is not only necessary to ensure the sustainability of their businesses, but also to adequately benefit from the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA)
AfCFTA when in operation, is expected to address the challenges of small fragmented markets in Africa by creating a single market, and also increase the volume of trade within the continent by US$35 billion annually or 52 percent by 2022.
This offers African businesses with an opportunity to implement forward-looking business decisions to maximize the benefits from the AfCFTA and integrate seamlessly within the regional and global value chains.
In an interview with Citi Business News, Alhassan Andai said Ghanaian businesses should take advantage of the latest technology to expand.
“Entrepreneurs should start to think big and implement, I just think that they should talk less and generate more ideas and take those ideas into products and services and sell it to the rest of the world”.
“So for entrepreneurs, it’s not about asking for government conditions, but it’s about having an idea and pushing that idea very hard. And now the African Continental Free Trade Area is coming, our market is opened within some bounds and other markets are also opened within some bounds, so our entrepreneurs should start to think big.”
He added, “Thank God for digital marketing now, I have met a lot of young and bright people in ICT who are coming out with brilliant fintech solutions like product distribution and market sizing and those services can instantly be rolled out to other African countries”.
Stakeholders within the business sector believe that the benefits of AfCFTA are significant.
The target market for the AfCFTA is projected to rise from an estimated 1.27 billion to 1.7 billion by 2030, out of which about 600 million will be in the middle class.
In terms of aggregate Gross Domestic Product (GDP), this will range from $2.1 trillion to $3.4 trillion. And in terms of investments and consumer spending, the AfCFTA is expected to attract an estimated $4 trillion.
