First Exporters Forum takes place

Accra, June 20, GNA - Government has released 108 million dollars towards the implementation of the Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) project to provide strategic interventions to address major constraints that affect the sector.

The project seeks to provide requisite funding facilities and technical support to SMEs that would improve their area of work. Deputy Minister of Trade, Industry, Private Sector Development and Presidential Special initiative, Mrs Gifty Ohene Konadu disclosed this at the first Exporters Forum in Accra on Wednesday. The project with the support of the World Bank Group would demonstrate government commitment to meet critical production requirement of small companies she said.

This, she said, had become possible because evidence had shown that small companies were still not able to access funds due to poor record keeping, failure to meet repayment schedules among other challenges. She appealed to exporters to improve their record keeping in order to meet the conditions required to access institutional funding and commended them for their contribution towards the export development in Ghana.

Mr Edward Collins Boateng, Executive Secretary of the Ghana Export Promotion Council assured the exporters of the Council's support in helping them penetrate the international markets as well as the growth of their industry.

Plans, he said, were ongoing to open a one-stop Ghana house in South Africa, where Ghanaians export their wares.

Mr Mawuli Agboka of Export Marketing and Quality Awareness Project (EMQAP) told the forum that rehabilitation of the 300 metric tonnes food shed at the Kotoka International Airport was near completion. The shed is about 4000 square meters and fully refrigerated. He said it was yet to be commissioned because it needed a transformer for it operations, which was not yet available. Funds for the project was made available from the Millennium Development Authority (MIDA), the authorized body for administering the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) MIDA was also in the process of releasing funds for the building of a perishable centre to augment the Food shed product.

Exporters at the forum asked government to remove bottlenecks that made their work difficult and frustrating. They said most of the bottlenecks were purely administrative issues, which could be easily dealt with and ask that where necessary, the right things should be done to make their work easier.