The Ghana Commodity Exchange says the listing of Ghana rice on the exchange is set for October this year.
Ghana Commodity Exchange has already listed maize, sorghum, and soybeans for trading.
Chief Operations Officer for Ghana Commodity Exchange Robert Dowuono Owoo said the process of listing requires a lot and they hope by October the commodity will be listed for trading.
“When the contract is approved we can’t just go in and then have a ceremony and said we’ve started. First of all the warehouses where commodities are going to be must be also licenced by the regulator, licensing means that they need to go and check the warehouse to properly store the commodity as they indicated, they need to make sure that we have our fire certificate, we have insurance covering the structure and also the content in the warehouse. The staff also properly trained and certified by the Standards Authority to the work.”
“On Monday the…map is going to be opened and we hope by the end of the month we will have the licence to trade from the warehouse, I’m very confident that in the first week of October we should have rice on the exchange and trading on it.”
The Ghana Commodity Exchange is a private company limited by shares, structured as a Public-Private Partnership, with the government of Ghana currently the sole shareholder.
The aim of the exchange is to establish linkages between agricultural and commodity producers and buyers, to secure competitive prices for their products, assuring the market quantity and quality as well as a timely settlement of their trade.
The CEO of the Exchange, Dr. Kadri Alfah last year explained the benefits of listing Ghana rice on the exchange
“What it means is that those who’re producing rice, either in the form of paddy or mill rice can actually bring their products and trade them on the Ghana Commodity Exchange, and those who want to buy paddy or Mill rice can come and buy it on the Exchange. We have a system that is able to trade over one million tonnes of different products a day, so the volume is not a problem. What we need is that we need to ensure that we are able to work with our partners to mobilize the farmers and also get warehouses where these commodities will be served.”
“It’s going to give a huge boost to the sector. Some of the problems the sector is facing currently include quality. Whatever is traded on the Exchange, the quality is defined with the industry and they’re accepted, and then they’re part of the products that will be listed on the Exchange”.
