The Ghana Trade Fair Company Limited’s management group is dedicated to making the trade show venue a major trading centre in West Africa.
It plans to finish a project that will house the African Continental Free Trade Area (AFCTA) Secretariat as well as other top-notch facilities over the following five years.
The impressive 236-acre Trade Fair Centre has long been in need of repair, with many of its pavilions and facilities becoming vacant.
But what began as a post-independence initiative to promote trade and industrialization in Ghana is now poised to develop into a successful organisation with ample funding.
After it was demolished, the Ghana Trade Fair Company Limited (GTFCL), a limited liability company with the responsibility of fostering and facilitating trade in Ghana, unveiled an ambitious plan to revitalise the area.
“We will also develop amusement facilities, commercial and residential properties on-site and last but not least, we will house the AfCFTA. We are building our main convention and exhibition facility here on site so we have plans to build a hotel on site so that when you come for an exhibition, there is a place on site. We also plan to build a retail and made-in-Ghana pavilion. That is the goal for the next three to five years”, Dr Agnes Adu, CEO of the GTFCL said.
The Trade and Expo City will be a state-of-the-art facility that takes advantage of Ghana’s potential in the international market.
The company’s management will start the process of choosing investors to develop various lots through open competitive bidding after developing the horizontal infrastructure.
“We hope to develop a well-planned enclave that will virtually run 24 hours if not seven days in a week. With the way the project is laid out, we went with a service lot approach which means that investors must not worry but just tap into what we have”, Dr. Agnes Adu added.
The redevelopment, according to Ghana’s Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta, offers a rare chance for the country to maintain its status as a regional economic powerhouse.
“This is the emancipation that will necessarily be the next drive of this whole issue of where Africa should be. So, let’s understand this tripod that even as small as we are as a country, we are leading this economic emancipation.”
