Government receives 40 million dollar credit

President John Agyekum Kufuor on Friday announced that the government had secured a 40-million dollar long-term credit line from the HSBC Exim Bank of the USA to support Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SME's).

He said a similar credit guarantee had also been obtained from the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID) for salt production and Agro-processing within the framework of the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS).

"The Canadian Government has also made five million dollars available through the Trust Bank to support Micro, Small and Medium Scale enterprises," he said.

Addressing the Third Ghana Investors' Advisory Council (GIAC) meeting in Accra, President Kufuor said with these interventions, a major constraint of companies to access long-term funds for expansion or retooling had been relieved.

The Council was inaugurated in May 2002, to advise the President on issues that were hampering the promotion of Ghana as the preferred destination for both domestic and foreign direct investments in the region.

It is a small, high level and informal advisory group, chaired by President Kufuor and comprised top-level corporate executives, who would assist to increase understanding between government and companies driving investments.

The Council included a 30-member group of top-level executives of foreign and Ghanaian businesses such as CMS Energy Company, ECOBANK, Heinekens, Ashanti Goldfields Company (AGC) as well as individuals from the private sector.

At their last meeting in November last year, the Council called for urgent structural reforms in the areas of Agribusiness, Land, Banking, Customs Procedure Reforms and Labour.

Touching on land reform, President Kufuor said efforts were being made to establish land banks through identification of various parcels of land that were acquired by the state for organizations such as the erstwhile Workers' Brigade and the State Farms to make land easily available for prospective investors.

He said these lands were currently being evaluated to enable government pay appropriate compensation in order to encourage other landowners and Stools to offer their parcels of land to the stock of land banks.

President Kufuor said reported crime rates were going down and a general sense of security and stability was now prevailing in the country because of improved morale of the Police and rising public confidence in them.

He said a draft framework for offshore banking industry in the country had been documented for the government.

On achievements made on recommendations made by the Council at its last meeting, President Kufuor said successes had been chalked on Inspection and Price verification regimes at the ports, saying the government's decision to open up the area for four different companies instead of a single one had brought about competition and improved service delivery at the ports.

"The average number of days to conduct price verification had been reduced from 10 to four days and is expected to go down further," he said, adding that due to automation clearing of goods at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) clearing had reduced from one week to less than a day."

On macro-economic stability, President Kufuor said the removal of the distortions in the economy caused by the decision to increase petroleum prices in order to recover cost would ensure that whatever macroeconomic gains made had better chance of being sustained.