Ghana Exim Bank to support manufacturing, export sectors

Mr Haruna Iddrisu, Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, has announced that the Ghana Exim Bank will soon be established to support both the manufacturing and export sectors.

He said the bill will soon be laid in Parliament to pave way for the establishment of the Ghana Exim Bank to complement the Ghana National Promotion Council’s efforts to promote investments in Ghana.

Mr Iddrisu, who was speaking at the 55th Annual General Meeting and Business Luncheon of the Ghana Employers’ Association (GEA) in Accra, said official announcement to that effect will be made by December this year.

He said for the private sector to thrive, it needs both the public and private sectors to grow and called for re-orientation of Ghanaians by forging relationship between them and the private sector.

He said looking up to the public sector for employment will soon be a thing of the past as graduates from tertiary institutions and polytechnics will be equipped to be in better positions to create jobs for themselves and others.

Dr Michael Agyekum Addo, Chief Executive Officer of KAMA Industries Limited, urged government to create an enabling environment to encourage entrepreneurs, who take steps to create businesses to be able to grow and thrive.

He said government could this do through providing tax breaks for new businesses; improve upon the supply of essential amenities such as water and electricity; a responsive judicial, free from corruption and government interference, that is committed to protecting local businesses and improving upon infrastructural projects throughout the country.

Dr Addo said the above actions would help create jobs to augment the entrepreneurs’ efforts.

He said the 21st century has come with its challenges, as ICT, with its numerous applications, is replacing the manual systems, thereby creating more unemployment.

He said the way forward is to shift to entrepreneurial revolution, which is more powerful than the industrial revolution and called for intensified education of the youth, to be able to think, teach, and create with an entrepreneurial mindset.

Dr Adu Gyamfi, Ist Vice President of GEA, stressed the need for employers to work within themselves to get basic data on unemployment rate in Ghana to enable them to create more jobs to absorb the number of graduates being churned out yearly.

He said the private sector has a key role to play and needs to sit down with government to see how to create more jobs to promote growth.