Fast-track Special Economic Zones bill – APN Group

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Policy Network (APN) has urged the newly elected government to fast-track the Special Economic Zones (SEZs) bill that is currently before parliament, to enhance export and create jobs for the youthful population.

The premier continental non-governmental organisation (NGO) network on trade and AfCFTA advocacy stressed that this bill, when passed into law, will be an effective tool for promoting industrial transformation and growth of the private sector by fostering regulatory reform and innovation.

The bill’s key provisions include ensuring that local small- and medium-size enterprises (SMEs), workers and communities benefit from SEZs; ensuring adequate land, off-site infrastructure and other resources are available to private-sector developers; and ensuring compliance, oversight and a transparent, efficient as well as level playing field for all SEZ users,

Executive Director-APN Group, Louis Yaw Afful, emphasised that these broad objectives are vital for private sector businesses to leverage resources for competitive participation in the AfCFTA.

He added that enabling a streamlined regulatory environment which coordinates the actions of relevant government entities through a one-stop shop act will ensure efficiency and encourage local SMEs to gain access to these economic and industrial zones.

Furthermore, he highlighted that Ghana’s AfCFTA Policy Strategy – a plan to integrate Ghana’s economy into the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) – is effective and needs backing from the SEZs Act to deliver expected results.

The strategy focuses on trade facilitation and infrastructure to create a supportive business environment.

“The Circular Economy’s rapid growth in Ghana will thrive more when the Special Economic Zones bill is fast-tracked into law – as implemented in South Africa, Morocco, Kenya and many others.

“Sustained AfCFTA trading offers an over-90 percent liberalised and tariff-dismantling regime, which has the potential of developing value chains, profit additions and export drives,” he said.

With the World Bank estimating AfCFTA services will contribute 50 percent to gross domestic product (GDP), he reiterated that when the country can sustain cross-border trade it can create job opportunities.

The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), in its Annual Household Income and Expenditure Survey-2024, indicated that the number of unemployed youths aged between 15 and 35 rose from about 1.2 million to over 1.3 million – with the rate among females consistently higher than males.

Passing this bill, synchronised with other policies and interventions, would enhance the business ecosystem for more SMEs to grow their operations, export to the AfCFTA market and create more sustainable jobs for the youth.

Mr. Afful elaborated that Ghana remains an agrarian economy, therefore – with over 50 percent of the AfCFTA Rules of Origin pointing to agribusiness potentials needed to link processing, manufacturing and industrialisation – it is important to create an enabling environment through these innovative regulatory frameworks that can drive growth in the SMEs space.

“Ghana implements free zones and has a Ghana Free Zones Authority (GFZA). Introducing Special Economic Zones offers larger economies of scale, export development and cob creation.

“So far, women and youth, digital commerce and fintech have accounted for the major compacts driving AfCFTA trading – and this needs urgent sustainability,” he emphasised.

The One District One Factory project and the 24-hour economy will be catalytic enablers in sustaining AfCFTA and creating jobs.

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