From ancient salt routes to a modern trade corridor in West Africa

By Kwame A. APEANING

For centuries, salt has been more than a commodity in West Africa; it has been a currency of trade, power, and regional integration. Ghana occupies a unique position in this history.

From ancient trans-regional trade routes to today’s emerging continental free-trade framework, Ghana has long functioned as a natural salt hub. What is changing now is not the relevance of salt, but the scale, technology, and policy environment shaping its future.

Let’s focus on Ghana as a historical Trade route for salt-Long before colonial boundaries, salt moved across West Africa through well-established routes linking the savannah, forest, and coastal zones.

Ghana’s coastal lagoons—particularly Songor, Keta, Elmina, and Ada—served as production centers, while inland and Sahelian regions depended on salt for food preservation, livestock, and trade.

Salt from the coast travelled northwards through river systems like the Volta and overland routes, connecting present-day Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and northern Nigeria by Ashanti merchants.

This trade positioned Ghana as a connector economy: producing at the coast, aggregating in central markets of Ashanti, and distributing across the subregion. That historical logic remains relevant today, even though the means of transport and trade governance have evolved.

Transitioning into modern salt logistics and transport has occasioned traditional transport obsolete, hence canoes, head-loading, carts, and caravans have been replaced by road haulage, bulk trucking, containerization, and port-based exports. Ghana’s modern transport corridors, including the Tema Port, Accra – Kumasi Highway ,the Eastern Corridor, and the Accra–Aflao–Lomé route, align closely with historical salt pathways.

However, the challenge has been scale and efficiency. Fragmented production, limited mechanization, poor storage, and high inland transport costs have weakened Ghana’s competitiveness, allowing imported salt to dominate regional markets despite Ghana’s natural advantage. Modern salt trade now requires:

• Bulk handling systems and mechanized harvesting
• Standardized packaging and quality control
• Integrated road–rail–port logistics
• Digital trade documentation and traceability

When these elements are in place, salt becomes a high-volume, low-cost regional trade commodity capable of supporting industrial users across West Africa.

The big question! What’s the role of AfCFTA  in re-engineering the Salt Trade Framework?

The answer is , African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), with its Secretariat in Accra, introduces the most significant structural opportunity Ghana’s salt industry has seen in decades. AfCFTA is not just about tariff reduction; it is about rebuilding regional value chains.

Under AfCFTA, Ghana’s salt sector stands to benefit from:

• Preferential access to a market of over 1.3 billion people
• Reduced tariffs and non-tariff barriers within Africa
• Harmonized standards for food, industrial, and chemical salt
• Easier cross-border payments through systems like PAPSS
• Investment protection and dispute resolution mechanisms

In the case of Salt – a bulky, high-demand industrial input is required. That will enable Ghana to reassert itself as a regional supplier rather than an importer, especially to landlocked countries that depend heavily on coastal access.

Role of Successive Governments, CSO’s and allied state institutions, Successive governments in Ghana have acknowledged the strategic importance of salt, though implementation has been uneven. Earlier policies focused on small-scale production and community livelihoods, with limited industrial impact. More recent administrations have placed salt within a broader industrialization and export-led growth agenda.

Key government actions include:

• Recognition of salt as a strategic mineral resource
• Support for large-scale projects such as Ada Songor
• Integration of salt into export diversification strategies
• Alignment of salt production with AfCFTA trade objectives

Institutional support through agencies like Ghana Export Promotion Authority (EPA), Chamber of Salt Producers and Exporters Ghana (CSPEG) and Mineral Income Investment Fund (MIIF)

Despite these efforts, gaps remain in land tenure clarity, infrastructure investment, financing access, and coordinated national strategy. What is clear, however, is a policy shift from subsistence salt production to export-oriented industrial salt development.

The Investment Case: Salt as a Regional Growth Asset

For investors, Ghana’s salt industry presents a rare convergence of history, geography, and policy. The fundamentals are strong:

• Abundant, renewable solar evaporation conditions
• Strategic coastal and inland trade positioning
• Guaranteed regional demand from food, mining, oil & gas, and chemical industries
• Policy alignment with AfCFTA and regional integration

Opportunities lie not only in production, but across the value chain:

• Large-scale salt farms and mechanized harvesting
• Refining, iodization, and industrial-grade processing
• Bulk storage and inland distribution hubs
• Export-focused logistics and port services
• Downstream chemical and pharmaceutical applications

As AfCFTA matures, Ghana is well-positioned to function as the salt gateway for West Africa—mirroring its historical role, but powered by modern infrastructure and continental trade rules.

Finally, Ghana’s identity as a salt trade route is not a relic of the past; it is an unfinished economic story. The same factors that made salt central to ancient West African trade—location, climate, and connectivity remain intact. What is required now is deliberate investment, consistent policy execution, and modern logistics.

Under the AfCFTA framework, Ghana has the opportunity to transform salt from an overlooked commodity into a strategic export pillar. For governments, it is a chance to unlock jobs and foreign exchange. For investors, it is an entry point into one of Africa’s most fundamental and scalable regional markets.

Kwame is the Founder|| Chamber of Salt Producers & Exporters Ghana

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