The Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr. Carlos Ahenkorah, has stated that government is on course with its quest to industrialise the country.
Delivering the keynote address at the Young Entrepreneur and CEO Awards 2018, the Deputy Minister said: “Our industrialisation agenda cannot realise its full potential if we fail as a government to develop our micro, small and medium-sized enterprises.
“SMEs by their nature, cannot compete with large establishments, so the best way is to support them to be part of the commodity value chains of the many projects under the industrialization transformation agenda being spearheaded by the Ministry of Trade and Industry,” he explained.
He said government will support micro, small and medium-sized enterprises under an industrial subcontracting and partnership exchange programme to link up with large enterprises in the supply of raw materials. “This is to help these small enterprises also grow as the large companies,” he added.
“This exchange programme, which is already being rolled out, is a portal where all large enterprises will be profiled. This will enable small-scale enterprises to have an opportunity to go on this platform to see what the large companies have or need,” he said.
“There are cases where large companies have to look outside the boundaries of Ghana to source their raw material, but that is going to be a thing of the past,” he said. Some of the raw materials required for production by large companies are being produced by micro, small and medium-sized enterprises. Unfortunately, because the large companies do not even know of the existence of those small enterprises, they go out there to solicit for the raw materials – putting pressure on our dollar and creating a whole lot of problems on our balance of payment”.
The minister also said that government is heading toward the point where it will include a provision for start-up capital in the budget.
“There is a growing appetite among the youth in Ghana to get into business; but as you may have realised already, the problem doesn’t lie with the skills but money to start.
I think that what we should be considering, like donor partners and supporters, is to probably see how we can identify financing sources to assist our youth and train them to develop and grow their businesses,” he said.
Source: BestNewsGH.com/Patrick Paintsil
