The Ghana Trade Fair Centre (GTFC) is to receive a facelift to make the facility an enviable exhibition hub within the West African sub-region.

This follows the government's decision to ensure that trade becomes a tool for sustainable economic growth.

The Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, made this known at the launch of the 17th Ghana International Trade Fair in Accra Thursday.

This year's fair, which began on Thursday on the theme, "Trade and Industry, heralding Ghana's Economic Growth", will run till March 10, this year.

About 460 local and international exhibitors from Benin, Guinea, Nigeria and Kenya are participating in the 11-day event.

According to Mr Iddrisu, the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) Law was being reviewed to ensure that local businesses had the needed capacity in line with the government's new direction for the trade sector.

"It is in line with achieving these set goals that the government intends to address the numerous challenges facing the trade fair company by carrying out massive infrastructural refurbishment and capital injection," Mr Iddrisu said.

That, he said, would also put the country on a high pedestal as it prepared to host the Seventh ECOWAS Fair in June this year.

He was hopeful that the participating companies would use the trade and exhibition fair to attract more investments that would enhance trade beyond the sub-region.

The Chairman of the Board of Directors of the GTFC, Capt Kwadwo Butah (retd), in his welcoming address, said in spite of technological advancement, the company was confronted with serious challenges that had derailed its performance.

He said many trade fair centres worldwide had undergone significant technological and structural transformation, thereby making them economically viable.

Capt Butah said while trade fairs had a positive impact on the expansion of export base businesses and promoting growth for local small-scale enterprises, Ghana was yet to make gains in that direction, as the GTFC had witnessed setbacks which had made the centre unattractive to businesses within and outside the country.

He expressed the hope that the re-development project that the government intended to carry out on the company's facilities would introduce innovations to meet the changing demands in trade.

Daily Graphic