Government to Reward Use of Local Technology

The government has promised to reward Ghanaians who use local technology to increase productivity.

This was contained in this year's budget statement. In this regard, government will establish a company to be called Small Scale Business Services (SBS) to support the development of small to medium term sized enterprises.

This company will cater for existing business with growth potential. The SBS will among other functions, provide expertise, advice and support in management skills; help in nurturing and training young entrepreneurs to realise their full potential; assist in providing funding for business start- up and existing businesses with growth potential to become sub-regional leaders.

In a related development the Minister for Private Sector Development is expected to form a team to recommend special incentives for local and foreign entrepreneurs to go into value added processing of cocoa and gold.

The recent drop in the world prices of the two traditional sources of revenue for Ghana, which opened debate for value added products must have prompted the government to come out with this incentive package.

In the past, a lot of noise had been over adding value to these commodities in order to enhance their revenue generation, but no practical steps were taken in this direction.

The government claims this move is part of plans to make the private sector more dynamic. Appropriate technological innovations will therefore be put in place to increase productivity of investment, which is currently low, by international standards.

In line with this, the budget states that a Public-Private Partnership for Industrial Development (PPPID) will be established within the framework of the Integrated Industrial Programme in the course of the financial year.

Besides, the government says it will continue to support activities in the food and fish processing, textile and garments, wood and wood processing and packaging. In addition, the metal and engineering sub-sector, which underpins development in the aforementioned subsectors, will be supported