By Kizito CUDJOE
The country must sharpen its focus on quality if it hopes to stand out in an increasingly crowded African manufacturing market, the Minister of Trade, Agribusiness and Industry, Elizabeth Ofosu-Adjare, has said.
She urged producers to maintain uncompromising standards as competition intensifies across the continent, especially under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
The minister made the remarks during a tour of two major manufacturing firms – Entrance Pharmaceuticals Limited and Wahu Mobility, accompanied by senior officials of the Ghana Free Zones Authority, an agency under the ministry.
The visit formed part of her broader industrial engagement to assess constraints within key production enclaves and encourage manufacturers to take advantage of emerging market opportunities.
Mrs. Ofosu-Adjare said the country’s long-standing reputation for quality products should be sharpened into a deliberate competitive tool, noting that global and regional markets are increasingly rewarding manufacturers who demonstrate consistency in standards, compliance and reliability.
She assured industry players that the government remains committed to working with them to clear bottlenecks and build capacity for export-led growth.
At Entrance Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of the Tobinco Group, the minister said the government envisages Ghana becoming a net exporter of pharmaceutical products in the medium term.
She explained that the ministry is aligning with regulatory bodies and investment agencies to support pharmaceutical producers to scale up, meet export requirements and position themselves strongly within regional supply chains.
The Executive Chairman of the Tobinco Group, Samuel Amo Tobbin, welcomed the minister’s delegation and acknowledged the benefits the company continues to enjoy under the free zones programme.
However, he highlighted the growing difficulty in mobilising funds internally due to delayed payments from governments across West Africa for supplies delivered, an issue he said is slowing operational expansion despite the export obligations that free zones companies are expected to meet.
Mr. Tobbin also appealed for government support to attract investment into establishing a maize starch processing plant in Ghana.
He described maize starch as a critical ingredient used broadly across pharmaceutical manufacturing and noted that the absence of such a facility in West Africa forces producers to rely entirely on imports.
A local plant, he stressed, would not only support drug manufacturing but also serve alcoholic beverage companies that require large volumes of the input.
Beyond this, the Tobinco Group Chairman called for urgent attention to road infrastructure leading to major industrial sites within the Spintex enclave.
He said the poor state of the roads undermines the scale of investments concentrated in the area and affects productivity and logistics efficiency.
Responding to this, Mrs. Ofosu-Adjare assured the company that the ministry would work with the appropriate authorities to address these issues as part of a coordinated industrial support agenda.
At Wahu, the Ghanaian electric mobility company, the Trade Minister announced that the government is reviewing the national automobile policy to ease operational costs for EV and e-mobility manufacturers.
She said the updated policy, undertaken on the instruction of President John Dramani Mahama, will extend tax exemptions and targeted incentives to producers of electric vehicles and electric motorcycles to support domestic assembly and broaden the industrial base.
Mrs. Ofosu-Adjare encouraged Wahu to prepare to take full advantage of the revised framework once completed, noting that the ministry aims to position the country as a hub for EV assembly and related e-mobility technologies.
She said the industrial tour is designed to deepen the government’s engagement with manufacturers and scale up efforts to build a stronger, more competitive production sector capable of driving job creation and export growth.
The post Quality will distinguish- manufacturing sector – Trade Minister appeared first on The Business & Financial Times.
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