Businesses in Ghana are encouraged to enhance their manufacturing capacities and expand into Asia, a ready market for their products.

“There are enormous opportunities in using start-ups and technology companies to solve Asian challenges using Ghanaian innovations,” Rahul Ghosh, the Sub-Saharan Africa Director of Enterprise Singapore, said.

Mr Ghosh, therefore, advised Ghanaian businesses not to see Asia only as a location for sourcing finished goods.

He made the call at a media briefing to highlight partnerships for mutual benefit between Ghana and Singapore, signalling that Singapore would serve as the gateway for Ghanaian products into the Asian market.

“There are educational technologies and payment system solutions being offered by Ghanaians that can be exported to Singapore and other Asian companies, and that’s what businesses must capitalise on,” he said.

He told Ghanaian Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in particular, to explore partnerships with Singapore companies for value addition to access the Asian market.

He guaranteed the support of Enterprise Singapore in that direction.  Enterprise Singapore is a Singapore government agency that helps to facilitate business and trade support between Singapore and Africa and their entry into the Asian market.

The Director also stated that Singaporean companies were there to advise on the optimum manufacturing lines to be set up in Ghana and train the workers to operate and produce to meet international standards.

He disclosed that Enterprise Singapore was working closely with Ghanaian authorities to drive companies and investment in Ghana to support the manufacturing sector.

Some of those investments, he said, would go in support of businesses under the government’s flagship One District-One factory (1D1F) project, aimed at making the Ghanaian economy export-oriented.

It would enable the Ghanaian SMEs to actualise the prospects in the four priority sectors of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) – agriculture and ago-processing, automotive, pharmaceuticals, and transport and logistics.

“What we are trying to do in the manufacturing space is to try and bring more manufactures from Singapore to contribute to Ghana to bring foreign investment and create employment,” Mr Ghosh said.

Work was also ongoing between the Bank of Ghana (BoG), financial institutions, and telecommunication companies to support financial inclusion in the country, the Director added.

To increase collaborations, the Ghana office of Enterprise Singapore, which has been operating since 2013, would continue to reach out to Ghanaian businesses to connect them to their counterparts in Singapore.

It also holds the Africa-Singapore Business Forum – a platform for business exchange and fostering trade between Africa and Asia, business-to-business meetings (B2B), to build stronger collaboration with SMEs from both countries.