Ministry to assist to small-scale enterprises

The Ministry of Trade and Industry on Sunday said it intends to recapitalise the National Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI) to ccelerate the development of Small-Scale Enterprises (SSEs).

It, therefore, intends to commit a greater chunk of donor support through the Ministry of Finance to the industrial sector, solely into the SSEs, in addition to contacting other donor agencies such as the German Technical Co-operation (GTZ) for more financial ssistance.

This decision was reached at the close of a 'brainstorming session at Elmina to re-shape and fine tune policies, programmes and strategies of the ministry.

The three-day session, which was held under the theme "enhancing the growth and development of trade and industries, was organised by the ministry with funding from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.

It evaluated the operations of the ministry and made recommendations for an action plan for restructuring the policy framework for support for the ministry and institutions under it.

About 60 top officials of the ministry and representatives of selected stakeholders, such as the NBSSI, the Ghana Exports Promotion Council and the Ghana Standards Board attended.

The ministry will in addition ensure enhanced technical support for the NBSSI to enable it to improve upon its services to the SSEs.

The session called for "better support" for all aspects of the ministry's operations and stressed the need for greater co-operation from the Ministries of Finance, Agriculture and Foreign Affairs as well as from the Bank of Ghana.

It, however, re-echoed the sector minister's concern about the fact that policies of the ministry are unclear and fragmented, and reiterated the need to rectify this to enhance the operations of the ministry and its institutions.

The session further called for management training for officials of the Ministry of Trade and Industry and its institutions to step up supervision and performance respectively.

In view of the short period for the session, a seven-member technical committee headed by the sector minister, Dr Kofi Konadu Apraku, was set up to produce a report for the national economic forum scheduled to take place later in the year.