The Chartered Institute of Marketing Ghana has launched this year’s edition of the annual National Marketing Performance awards, slated for November this year.

The 32nd awards since its inception, aims to reposition Ghana to leverage the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) for economic development.

The objective of AfCFTA is to, among other things create a single continental market for goods and services, with free movement of business persons and investments, paving the way for accelerating the establishment of the Continental Customs Union.

Speaking to Joy Business at the media launch of the CIMG National Marketing Performance Awards, President of the institute, Dr. Daniel Kasser-Tee said, it is the expectation of the institute, in choosing the theme that Ghana, as a corporate brand, will be repositioned based on its comparative advantages.

“We have one of our key agenda for the year to be advocacy; we are going to explore ways by which we can advocate for the nation Ghana to come to the realization that indeed AfCFTA has come and being housed here in Ghana because we have the secretariat. But we need to consciously marshal our resources to take advantage, hence corporate Ghana needs to set the agenda for business entities to follow”, he said.

National Vice President and Chairperson of the Awards Planning and Selection Committee, Agnes Essah in her submission assured that standards of the awards scheme won’t be compromised.

She has however urged corporate organizations to be skeptical about other awards schemes.

“It’s important for the public to realize that when people approach you and say they are giving you an award, you have to try and do a bit of due diligence, which is ask a few questions because substance and quality is important. So for CIMG, we will publish in the dailies, letters will be going out to various corporate bodies and industries that will nominate and which undergoes further scrutiny.” She said.

The media launch of the 32nd CIMG awards featured the official launch of the institute’s 40th anniversary amid the unveiling of a new anniversary cloth and logo.