Scheduled between November 29 and December 1, the conference will be held under the auspices of the German trade show specialists, Agrofood and Plastprintpack West Africa.

It will be held at the Accra International Conference Centre and is expected to bring together exhibitors from 13 registered countries including; Ghana, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Iran, Italy, Poland, Spain, Turkey, USA, South Africa, Egypt and Sri Lanka to showcase their products at the fair.

Performing the launch of the event in Accra on Tuesday, the Managing Director of Fairtrade, Paul Marz, said the objective of the fair was to create trade partnerships and value between Ghanaian companies and their international counterparts within the agrofoods and plastic packaging industry.

“The objective of the conference is to bring production to Ghana to enhance production in Ghana so Ghana becomes less dependent on food imports, and produce more in the country,” he emphasised.

Mr Marz explained that the trade fair would focus on agrofoods and plastic products as well as printing and packaging.

“We are going to have exhibitors from 13 countries all over the world, displaying their latest technology, latest products from their respective countries in the entire food and agrofood value chain from production, processing to the final product on the table and everything you need,” he said.

Throwing more light on the plastics printing and packaging, Mr Marz revealed that exhibitors in this space would be offered the opportunity to display plastics raw materials, machinery for printing and labelling on plastic products.

The Director of Plant, Protection and Regulatory Services at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Mr Eric Quaye, commended Fairtrade for putting together the exhibition.

He explained that such events were very crucial to the policies of the ministry, adding that there was the need to produce good quantities of foods that needed to be processed further.

Mr Quaye entreated Ghanaian businesses that would be participating in the event to take full advantage and shore up their businesses.

He pledged MoFA’s support to Fairtrade to ensure that the event becomes successful.

Founded in 1991, Fairtrade has long been one of the leading organisers of professional international agrofood and Plastprintpack trade fairs in Africa and the Middle East.

Over the decades, more than 36,000 exhibitors and 1.5 million trade visitors have expressed their confidence in Fairtrade.

With its international trade shows, they employ innovative ways to connect emerging markets with solution providers from across the globe.

Facilitating valuable business contacts between their exhibitors and trade visitors -that is what Fairtrade stands for.

The Agrofood & Plastprintpack West Africa 2022 is a collaboration between Fairtrade and the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), Ghana National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GNCCI), Ghana Enterprises Agency (GEA), and Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC).

The rest are the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) and Food and Beverages Association of Ghana (FABAG).