Government To Establish 300 Enterprises

Government is to establish over 300 commercially viable enterprises in all the 110 districts of the country, as part of the President's Special Initiatives (PSI), to boost employment and reduce poverty. Mr. Alan Kyeremanten, Minister for Trade, Industry and President's Special Initiatives who said this yesterday said the enterprises, to be built in the next three years under the Rural Enterprise Development Programme, would receive financial assistance from various sources to support their activities.

He said funds from community ownership, strategic investors, district assemblies and institutional investors would be used to provide the necessary backing for such enterprises.

Mr. Kyeremanten was speaking at a meeting with Ms. Pamela Bridgewaters, deputy assistant secretary at the Department of State of Washington, who paid a courtesy call on him in Accra. He said sensitisation activities on the programme were already underway in the Central and Western regions and this would soon be extended to other parts of the country.

Mr. Kyeremanten said the main focus of the programme and others under the PSI were designed to move the country out of poverty onto the path of sustained economy growth. In this direction, the Trade Minister said, the Ministry was pursuing an export led industrialisation drive with focus on the involvement of the rural community since about 60 per cent of the population live in the rural areas.

The Ministry would also implement an import substitution programme to promote the local production of some products, which were currently being imported. "To reduce poverty on a sustainable base, one must grow at a faster rate", he added. He stressed the need to mainstream the rural population into the development programmes to ensure its success.

M. Kyeremanten said a technology improvement programme had been designed to provide technical assistance to the local industries for the success of the PSI and the Ministry's new reforms. He said a special purpose recovery trust for distressed but potentially viable locally industries would be initiated. Under it, some companies would have their debts absorbed while distressed companies would be re-capitalised by converting the debts into equity to be off loaded when the companies regain their strength.

The Trade Minister, appealed to all to join the government in the fight to reduce poverty and make the country worth living in. Ms Bridgewaters commended Ghana for undertaking the initiatives and urged government to take advantage of the quality of expertise.