Kasapreko explores new offshore markets

Total beverage producer Kasapreko Limited is investing about €3.5 million to expand its production capacity as it explores new offshore markets.

The company is also investing another $3 million in warehousing and transportation, as it plans to increase its exports to 100,000 cartons a month from the present 60,000 cartons.

The Director for International Business Development, Mr Clarence Amenyah, who disclosed this, said plans were advanced to increase the export of the company’s non-alcoholic brands to Mali, Burkina Faso, Liberia, Sierra Leone and South Africa.

In an interaction with some journalists on the company’s premises at Baatsona, Mr Amenyah said Kasapreko had reactivated its Nigeria export line which was disrupted when that country’s economy went into a recession.

“Over the past three months, we have resumed shipment to Nigeria and the feedback has been good. It is for this reason that we will in the ensuing weeks relaunch the Alomo Bitters brand in that country,” he said.

Export bottlenecks

Mr Amenyah indicated that while they were making progress, the failure to enforce the ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme (ETLS) remained a bottleneck to the company’s quest to break into various markets within West Africa.

“The ETLS, made up of protocols to promote free trade in West Africa towards the creation of a common market, continues to be an impediment to trade due to the lack of implementation by member countries. The treaty has been in existence for long, yet many countries within the region are not willing to abide by the very agreement they subscribe to,” Mr Amenyah lamented.

He also noted that although the problem may not be peculiar to Kasapreko, the company believed the only way to develop capacity and reduce joblessness among the youth would be to ensure the protocols were made to work.

He pointed out that the company did not pay custom levies on exports, but importers at the other end of the supply chain in those markets “are sometimes made to pay taxes in excess of over 120 per cent and this is a disincentive to them.”

“We are, therefore, appealing to the Ministries of Trade and Industry and Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration to come to our aid and lead the effort to ensure uniformity among member countries,” he suggested.
 
Product development

Mr Amenyah also expressed worry about the Alomo brand being diluted and sold on the Nigerian market.

He cautioned persons engaged in the illicit act to desist as the company would push to get people prosecuted if they were found out.

The Director of Finance at the company, Mr Emmanuel Teiko, also suggested that countries within the sub-region were not growing as expected because of impediments to trade.

He stated that Anglophone countries sought to make strides, while the Francophone countries continued to implement stricter trade terms which “we expected the ETLS to address but is unable to do,” he said.