Airport City, Accra's gleaming commercial precinct, hosted a convergence of Turkish industrial ambition and Ghanaian market appetite on June 24 and 25, 2026, as the 12th edition of the World Cooperation Industries (WCI) Forum opened its doors to more than fifty leading Turkish manufacturers and hundreds of Ghanaian and African business counterparts. The occasion drew high diplomatic representation: His Excellency Huseyin Gungor, the Ambassador of Turkiye to Ghana, attended the exhibition of Turkish businesses, joining Utku Bengisu, President of the WCI Forum, in what amounted to a visible statement of where Ankara's commercial and diplomatic energies are directed on the African continent.
The WCI Forum is not a new entrant to Ghana's business landscape. Over more than a decade, it has built a credible and sustained presence across West Africa and beyond, connecting Turkish producers and exporters directly with African importers, distributors, government institutions, and investors. It has held forums not only in Accra but in Abidjan, Addis Ababa, Lagos, Kinshasa, and Abuja. What distinguishes the WCI model from a standard trade fair is its insistence on eliminating the intermediary: the forum operates as a structured business-to-business matching platform, where manufacturers sit across the table from potential buyers and distribution partners without brokers or agents in between. For Ghana's import-dependent economy, that model carries particular appeal.
The 12th edition brought together manufacturers across an unusually broad industrial sweep: construction materials, food and beverages, agricultural inputs, textiles, footwear, machinery, and fast-moving consumer goods. That range reflects not a scattershot approach to African markets, but a deliberate reading of where Ghana's import demand is concentrated and where Turkish industrial capacity has a competitive advantage in terms of price, quality, and delivery reliability.
The Ambassador at the Exhibition Hall
The presence of Ambassador Huseyin Gungor at the Turkish business exhibition carried significance beyond protocol. Ambassadors attend such events when they have a reason to when the forum represents something worth the weight of diplomatic association. His attendance at Airport City on June 24 signals that the Turkish Embassy in Accra regards the WCI Forum as an extension of state-level commercial diplomacy, not merely a private sector gathering. That alignment between diplomatic representation and business facilitation is a hallmark of how Ankara has approached Africa for the past two decades: not through aid dependency or resource extraction, but through trade infrastructure, investment, and institution-building.
It is also worth noting that Ambassador Gungor's appearance at the forum came less than 24 hours after a meeting he held with this journalist on June 24, in which the diplomatic dimensions of the Ghana-Turkiye relationship were discussed at some length. The forum gave that conversation a concrete commercial context. The goods on display in the exhibition halls at Airport City are the physical expression of a bilateral relationship that has been growing steadily, and which both Ankara and Accra have expressed intent to deepen.
Utku Bengisu: The Architect of Turkiye's African Trade Network
Utku Bengisu is not a diplomat, but he functions like one. Born in 1982 in the Tire district of Izmir, he graduated in Industrial Engineering from Balikesir University in 2004 and founded Bosphorus Expo and Africa Trade Centers in 2011 enterprises he continues to lead. Over the years he has visited 44 of Africa's 54 countries, and the WCI Forum's database today holds records of 450,000 Turkish companies active on the continent. He has described Africa as the place where the world's future will be decided a conviction that has driven him to build a trade architecture that reaches from Accra to Addis Ababa and from Lagos to Kinshasa.
Speaking ahead of the June forum, Bengisu had articulated an expanded vision for the Accra edition. Beyond the traditional Turkish manufacturer cohort, this year's forum incorporated a joint Turkish-Azerbaijani delegation, reflecting the WCI Forum's ambition to serve as a conduit not just for Turkish exports but for the broader Turkic world's trade engagement with Africa. Speaking on the sidelines of the Blue Economy Summit in Trabzon in March 2026, Bengisu had said: 'The Turkic world is growing and developing rapidly. It is no longer as it once was. Today, the Turkic world is more interconnected, more productive, and increasingly dynamic.' That expanding vision was visible at Airport City, where Azerbaijani business representatives joined their Turkish counterparts in presenting products and negotiating supply arrangements with Ghanaian and broader West African buyers.
Bengisu has also consistently spoken about Turkiye's trade trajectory in a way that places Africa at the centre rather than the periphery. Turkiye currently exports over $225 billion annually and has grown its trade with Africa from $5 billion two decades ago to $37.5 billion at present. That growth, he argues, is still far below potential. His forum is one of the primary instruments through which that potential is being converted into transactions.
What the Forum Means for Ghana
For Ghana, the WCI Forum is an opportunity to be taken seriously rather than merely attended. Ghana is a significant importer of the categories on display in Airport City. Construction materials, food products, textiles, and machinery collectively account for a substantial share of the country's import bill. Where those goods are sourced and at what price, quality, and payment terms directly affect Ghanaian businesses, consumers, and the country's trade deficit. The WCI Forum offers an alternative supply chain pathway, one that bypasses the traditional European intermediaries through which many goods historically reached Ghana at inflated cost.
Turkiye's engagement with Ghana also extends beyond trade. The Turkish Maarif Foundation operates schools in Ghana. The Hudai Foundation has established a humanitarian and cultural presence. The Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) have implemented development projects. The Turkish defence manufacturer Baykar has supplied unmanned aerial vehicles to the Ghana Armed Forces. Each of these institutional presences reinforces the others, creating a web of engagement that makes bilateral trade relationships stickier and more durable. The WCI Forum is the commercial expression of that broader web.
The Ghana National Chamber of Commerce and Industry has maintained ties with the WCI Forum across its editions. Government representation has also been consistent, with ministers participating in previous editions. That institutional continuity on the Ghanaian side gives the forum a level of credibility and access that purely private-sector events rarely achieve.
Win-Win or Asymmetric Dependency?
The WCI Forum's own branding leans heavily on the language of 'win-win cooperation', a phrase Turkiye has deployed consistently in its Africa policy. It is a phrase worth interrogating. Trade relationships between a $1 trillion economy like Turkiye and a $76 billion economy like Ghana are not inherently equal. The risk, as with any significant trade relationship between economies of unequal size, is that the smaller party becomes a market for the larger one's manufactured goods while its own industrial capacity remains underdeveloped.
That concern does not diminish the value of what the WCI Forum offers, but it does define what a strategically intelligent Ghanaian engagement with Turkiye should look like. The most consequential business leaders at Airport City were not those shopping for Turkish goods to resell in Ghanaian markets, but those exploring co-production arrangements, technology transfer agreements, or joint ventures that bring Turkish industrial know-how to bear on Ghanaian raw material and agricultural value chains. Whether the forum has consistently generated those higher-value relationships or whether it has primarily facilitated import transactions is a question the Ghana National Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Ghana's trade policymakers should be asking.
A Forum in Context
The 12th WCI Forum in Accra takes place in a Ghana that is navigating a complex economic adjustment utility tariff increases effective July 1, 2026, a National Democratic Congress government focused on fiscal consolidation, and a private sector searching for cost-competitive supply chains. In that context, a structured platform offering direct access to Turkish manufacturers is not a marginal event. It is relevant to the practical business decisions that Ghanaian importers, distributors, and manufacturers are making right now.
It also takes place in a Turkiye that is increasingly present across Africa's security, diplomatic, and commercial landscape. The same country that supplies drones to Ghana's military maintains schools through the Maarif Foundation, builds mosques through the Diyanet, sends development assistance through TIKA, and connects manufacturers to African buyers through the WCI Forum. That is a coherent, multi-layered strategy, and the presence of Ambassador Gungor at the Airport City exhibition hall is its diplomatic embodiment.
Bengisu's conviction that the future lies in Africa may be a businessman's pitch, but it is one that is increasingly supported by demographic and economic data. Africa's population will double to over two billion by 2050. Its middle class is expanding. Its urbanization rate is the fastest in the world. The continent's appetite for manufactured goods, construction materials, food products, and technology will grow in ways that dwarf current trade volumes. Turkiye, through forums like the WCI and institutions like the Maarif Foundation and TIKA, is positioning itself to be a preferred partner when that growth arrives at scale.
Ghana would do well to engage that positioning with equivalent strategic clarity not as a passive recipient of Turkish commercial interest, but as a deliberate architect of a partnership that advances Ghanaian industrial ambition alongside Ghanaian import convenience. The 12th WCI Forum at Airport City offered a room full of possibilities. What Ghana does with those possibilities will define whether this relationship remains transactional or becomes transformational.
Mustapha Bature Sallama.
Medical/ Science Communicator,
Private Investigator, Criminal investigation and Intelligence Analysis.
International Conflict Management and Peace Building.USIP
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References
WCI Forum. "WCI Forum Ghana 12th Edition." wciforum.com. Accessed June 25, 2026. https://www.wciforum.com/gh
Caspian Post. "WCI Forum President: Business Leaders from Turkiye, Azerbaijan to Meet with Buyers in Ghana." March 28, 2026. https://caspianpost.com/economics/wci-forum-president-business-leaders-from-turkiye-azerbaijan-to-meet-with-buyers-in-ghana-video
Caspian Post. "Utku Bengisu: There is Significant Potential in Introducing Azerbaijani Products to African Markets." March 28, 2026. https://caspianpost.com/economics/utku-bengisu-there-is-significant-potential-in-introducing-azerbaijani-products-to-african-markets
Ghanamma. "WCI Forum President: Business Leaders from Turkiye, Azerbaijan to Meet with Buyers in Ghana." March 28, 2026. https://www.ghanamma.com/2026/03/28/wci-forum-president-business-leaders-from-turkiye-azerbaijan-to-meet-with-buyers-in-ghana-video/
Anadolu Agency. "Turkish-African Business Event WCI Forum Kicks Off in Istanbul." https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/turkish-african-business-event-wci-forum-kicks-off-in-istanbul/3658936
Daily Sabah. "Turkish, African Businesspeople Gather at WCI Forum in Istanbul." August 15, 2025. https://www.dailysabah.com/business/economy/turkish-african-businesspeople-gather-at-wci-forum-in-istanbul-212219
TRT Afrika. "WIC Forum: Turkiye's Trade Bridge with Africa." February 15, 2025. https://www.trtafrika.com/english/article/18265078
News.Az. "Turkish, Azerbaijani Business Leaders to Meet Buyers in Ghana, Says WCI Forum President." March 28, 2026. https://news.az/news/turkish-azerbaijani-business-leaders-to-meet-buyers-in-ghana-says-wci-forum-president-video
WCI Forum. "About WCI Forum." wciforum.com. https://www.wciforum.com/
LinkedIn. "Utku Bengisu President, Bosphorus Expo." https://www.linkedin.com/in/utkubengisu/
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