A senior partner at AB & David, David Ofosu-Dorte, says many Ghanaian businesses have limited their focus to operating only in Ghana unlike their counterparts in other parts of the continent.
He said comparatively, Ghana ranks low in Africa on the number of its businesses that have penetrated other African markets.
Speaking on the on-air series of the Citi Business Festival on opportunities for Ghana, he said Ghanaian businesses must make deliberate efforts to expand their operations beyond the country.
“If I were to rank in terms of the mindset of businesses trying to expand and take advantage of AfCFTA, I will put Ghana at number five. That means our businesses are not really Africa-focus. I think we have the opportunity of the secretariat here. It makes it easy for us to access the secretariat and get all relevant information. We need to do a lot more to drive the business mindset and tell them [businesses] what they can take advantage of instead of allowing others to do that,” he said.
He said Ghana also ranks low on various multinational indexes, with countries such as South Africa and Kenya ranking favourably.
He however said the local businesses have the opportunity to change the narrative and become regional champions.
“Unfortunately, we are not doing very well on the African multinational index. You find that if you compare to other countries like South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya, Ghanaian entities are not doing so well. We have the opportunity to increase that and to promote our business to become real regional champions, and then we can be much bigger across the content,” he added.
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 on-air series will air on the Citi Breakfast Show on 97.3 Citi FM every weekday.
The 2022 edition of the Citi Business Festival is mainly sponsored by ABSA Bank, with support from MTN Momo and MTN Business, Ghana Investment Promotion Centre, IT Consortium and GIRSAL.
