Dan Sackey, Managing Director of Ecobnk Ghana has been given a special tour of the largest locally owned manufacturer and distributor of fertilizers in the country, Agricultural Manufacturing Group (AMG), a company positioning itself to expand its operations and compete globally by exporting more of its products.
The company which is currently exporting 45-50 percent of its products to neighboring countries want to increase exports to 70 percent. Along with this development, Ecobank Ghana, led by its CEO, Dan Sackey, paid a courtesy call on the company, at its ultra-modern warehouse facility.
Mr. Sackey, who was impressed with the tour of the facility at Kpone in the Greater Accra Region, encouraged the company to focus on measures to expand its tentacles outside Ghana. He said the bank is ready for a partnership which would also offer the company the opportunity to work with other Ecobank branches across Africa.
“I believe that the export market is huge and it is available for you to take advantage. If you can find a local dealer in the neighboring countries, we are good to go. There are farmers who are ready to buy fertilizers in the francophone countries; the good thing is that because their soil is not as rich as ours, they are natural fertilizer users, they know. Without fertilizers, they find it difficult farming, so that market is big. If you have the capacity to go into the market it would be a good business.”
“We have to find ways to work together and see how you can get into that market on a more sustained basis,” Mr. Sackey added.
Ernest Akwasi Appiah, Managing Director of AMG Fertilizers, said that the nation’s fertilizer usage is growing, a sign that there is a good market for their products locally while there is a great opportunity to export as well.
“The consumption of fertilizer in Ghana for the farmers is over 1.3 million metric tons. It is going up every day; there is also a good export market and we do not add that to the local consumption figures. Each and every, day my company finds satisfaction in also providing small scale and large-scale farmers with a crop nutrition product that guarantees them high yields, through the adaptation of cheaper but very cost-effective crop nutrition combinations,” Mr. Appiah said.
He mentioned that some US$15-16 million of the company’s capital has been invested in building the factory and the hope is to get some more funds to expand. The company currently plays a key role in the manufacturing and distribution of fertilizers for cocoa farmers across the country; its flagship product, Cocoa Nti fertilizer is a household name in cocoa-growing communities.
Established in 2012, and with one of the strongest local presence, AMG prides itself as a leader in the field of speciality fertilizers, with its continuous innovative development of wide ranges of quality fertilizer products and related services. The AMG brand is steadily grown to become a symbol of quality, a pioneer and pacesetter in the Ghanaian agricultural sector.
