Personal Profile
Michael Okyere Baafi is the current Deputy Minister for Trade and Industry and a Member of Parliament for the New Juaben South Constituency. He serves on the Ministerial Advisory Board of the Ministry of Finance, the Public-Private Partnership Committee of the Ministry of Finance, the Tree Crop Development Board, and the Ghana Exim Bank Board, among others. He is a member of the Ghana Integrated Iron and Steel Development Board. In Parliament, he serves on the Roads and Transportation Committee and the Environment, Science, and Technology Committee. Before becoming a member of Parliament, he was the CEO of the Ghana Free Zones Authority (GFZA). He is recognized with enhancing the company's brand image and altering the organization's work culture, transforming it into a public institution with a private sector orientation. In addition, he initiated investment promotion operations that resulted in the registration of 63 new Free Zone businesses over the course of three years. He earned a Bachelor of Education in Psychology and a Master of Business Administration in Marketing and Corporate Strategy from the University of Cape Coast (UCC) and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), respectively. To stay current and develop into a consummate professional, Michael attended workshops and seminars in a variety of disciplines, including investment promotion, marketing and sales, claims handling, and small business management skills, as well as innovation and leadership. He is a CIM (Chartered Institute of Marketing) member (UK). He is a renowned speaker who is well versed in industry and economic zone development matters, having lectured at international conferences. He has participated in the 1st West Africa Start- Up Summit, Niger (November 2021) and the 3RD Turkey- Africa Economic and Business Forum, Turkey in October 2021. He was asked to speak on trade and SME development in Namibia by their Minister of Industrialization. He spoke at a meeting of the Ghanaian-German Business Council in Berlin, Germany. International Growth Centre (IGC) Conference on Special Economic Zones, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Company Profile
The Ministry of Trade & Industry is the lead policy advisor to government on trade, industrial and private sector development with responsibility for the formulation and implementation of policies for the promotion, growth and development of domestic and international trade and industry. The Ministry is also the advocate for the private sector within government and is the principal agency responsible for monitoring and implementing the Government’s private sector development programmes and activities. on communication and attention to detail.
The Ministry also ensures that Ghana derives maximum benefit from international trade relations and that domestic trade is conducted in a smooth and orderly manner. Furthermore, it is the responsibility of the Ministry to strengthen trade relations with all friendly countries on a most favoured nation basis consistent with Ghana’s membership of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Special attention continues to be focused on the diversification of markets and the commodity export base by promoting the development of non-traditional exports industries with the view to developing an export-led economy. In industry, the Ministry’s policy thrust continues primarily to be the development of a more competitive industrial sub-sector with potentials to make in-roads into the international market with value added local products derived from local resources.