The Eastern, Volta and Oti branch of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) is collaborating with the International Trade Centre(ITC) to equip members with knowledge on developing trade and sustainability standards.

The training forms part of efforts by the Association in the three regions to build the capacity of members to enable them to take advantage of the African Continental Free Trade Area(AfCFTA) which is scheduled to take off in January of 2021.

The webinar which was on the theme: “Sustainability map, your roadmap to sustainable consumption, production and Trade.”

Mr Albert Armooh, International Trade Centre(ITC) Trainer, explained that one of the focus areas was to ensure Small Medium Enterprises(SMEs) achieve the global development goals through the provision of trade and market intelligence.

He said for a company to benefit from sustainability standards, it had to get access to the international market by creating and managing their profile on the sustainability map.

That will present the company to the global network of companies and a QR Code generated to be embossed on the labels.

He said this would ensure that anytime the code was scanned all the sustainability practices of the company would be shown and that gave them an advantage over others doing the same business who are not practising sustainability.

“It makes the company attractive because of its good credibility and reputation as well as an endorsement that will come from buyers,” he reiterated.

Mr Armooh said the sustainability map tool is to help get information on voluntarily sustainability standards and sustainable market trends and allows one to view the gaps in compliance with the requirement of the standard.

He noted that the sustainability map has four main modules, the standard module which offered over 240 voluntary sustainability standards and allowed for analysing their criteria and processes as well as comparing them.

He said the network module enabled one to create their online profile so that they could put information about their company and their sustainability practices.

He noted that the trend module supported those who are interested in looking at market trends, while the community module looked at sharing information.

Mr Felix Berbiye, Treasurer of the AGI branch, said the region was working tirelessly to build the capacity of members and to promote their business sustainability practices to gain visibility in the international supply chain and connect to international buyers.

He noted that setting up of the AGI E-commerce platform was also another avenue to enable listed members to take advantage of the digital revolution and open up to a wider spectrum of clients for their products and services.