Trade Minister calls for coordinated industrial financing at Africa Trade Summit 2026

Accra, Jan. 28, – The Minister for Trade, Agribusiness and Industry, Mrs Elizabeth Ofosu-Agyare, has called for smart, coordinated and regionally aligned industrial financing strategies to support Africa’s industrialisation drive under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

She said industrial policy had returned strongly to the global agenda, with advanced economies aggressively financing strategic sectors through blended finance and targeted subsidies, and urged African countries to adopt similar but well-coordinated approaches.

Mrs Ofosu-Agyare was speaking at the opening of the Africa Trade Summit 2026 in Accra.

She cautioned against uncoordinated national subsidies, noting that such approaches could undermine regional competitiveness and weaken Africa’s collective industrial ambitions.

The Minister outlined Ghana’s sector-focused industrial strategy, highlighting progress in textiles and garments, automotive components and pharmaceuticals, and called for deeper investment in upstream manufacturing capabilities to strengthen domestic and regional value chains.

The two-day summit, convened by the African Trade Chamber at the Kempinski Gold Coast City Hotel, has brought together Heads of State, ministers, captains of industry, financiers and development partners from across Africa and beyond.

The Summit is being held under the theme: “Financing Africa’s Industrialization: Developing Industrial Value Chains, Beneficiation, and Market Integration.”

Opening the Summit, the Executive Chair of the African Trade Chamber, Ms Benedicta Lasi, said Africa’s industrialisation agenda had reached a critical stage, stressing that the key challenge was no longer policy design but effective execution.

She said the focus should be on mobilising long-term capital, building integrated value chains, converting extraction into production and organising markets to support scale, competitiveness and resilience.

Ms Lasi described the Summit as a working platform rather than a ceremonial event, aimed at addressing structural constraints such as fragmented markets, weak production linkages, limited project preparation capacity and the gap between policy ambition and bankable investment.

She announced the activation of sector-based Industry Councils to promote sustained collaboration, project development and regulatory and financing alignment beyond the Summit.

In his opening address, the Chair of the Advisory Board of the African Trade Chamber, Sir Sam Jonah, said Africa’s industrial challenge was not a lack of resources, but the absence of durable systems that link production, finance and markets.

He said industrialisation could not advance without patient capital, disciplined policy frameworks and institutions capable of coordinating across sectors and borders, adding that AfCFTA would not deliver its full benefits unless regional value chains were deliberately strengthened.

Delivering a keynote address, the Deputy Director-General of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), H.E. Fatou Haidara, said Africa stood at a turning point as global value chains were being reconfigured and demand for strategic minerals, manufactured goods and green technologies increased.

She said Africa must move away from commodity dependence towards value-added production, stressing the need for local processing and increased regional trade.

H.E. Haidara highlighted project preparation, risk-sharing mechanisms and long-term partnerships as critical to unlocking capital, and underscored the importance of including small and medium enterprises, youth-led and women-owned businesses in industrial value chains.

The Summit was officially opened by the President of the Republic of Ghana, H.E. John Dramani Mahama, who said Africa’s defining task was economic independence.

He warned against continued reliance on an economic model that exports raw materials and imports finished goods, describing it as a new form of colonial arrangement.

President Mahama called for large-scale mobilization of domestic and institutional capital, stronger public-private partnerships and reforms to the global financial system to improve Africa’s access to long-term finance.

He stressed that beneficiation, regional value chains and market integration under AfCFTA must be deliberately aligned with industrial policy and infrastructure development.

Source:Joseph Wemakor