Air cargo centre boosts Ghana's exports 

Produce from Ghana will have faster access to international markets in spring 2016, when a new air cargo centre is complete at Accra.

Ghana Airport Cargo Centre is being built at Kotoka International Airport. GAAC is co-owned by Air Ghana, a private passenger aviation and freight service company, and the state-owned Ghana Airports Company Limited.

Finnfund and Access Bank Ghana have provided finance for GAAC. Access Bank Ghana is a subsidiary of Nigeria’s Access Bank, with which Finnfund has been cooperating since 2006.

As a lower-middle-income country, Ghana needs to develop and diversify its foreign trade. Greater air cargo capacity and more efficient service will mainly benefit the country’s fruit producers.

Their main exports are pineapples but they also airfreight papaya, passion fruit, vegetables and yams to foreign markets. Local producers have begun to export prepacked peeled fruit, too.

When the cargo centre is complete it will employ about 300 workers in Accra. The growth of airfreight capacity will create extra jobs inter alia in forwarding and in all those sectors where export possibilities are improved by the cargo centre. 

Photo: Ghana Airport Cargo Centre