GEPA: SMEs Bank forum opens in Takoradi

The Western Regional office of the Ghana Export Promotion Council has organised a forum for SMEs to interact with banks within the Region on how to access credit and other facilities.

Enhancing financial accessibility for SMEs has become essential subject matter so crucial to the development, growth and management of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Ghana.

Dr. Asabea Asare, at the opening of the forum said the GEPA had a long-standing reputation of engaging and assisting SMEs for over 50 years.

She said such engagements with these actors strived to lessen their plights by deploying practical solutions to the many problems they faced, adding, the catalogue of challenges faced by SMEs were well known and documented.

The CEO said a major sticking problem had always been the mobilization and management of financial resources, aside cost and reliability of energy, lack of expertise, succession planning deficiency, opaque management style, raw material sourcing and a host of other non-financial encumbrances.

She also noted how many banks had approached GEPA to facilitate and provide them with the platform to reach the small exporter and be able to provide them with export financial solutions.

Dr Asare said the frequency of the demand from both ends of the spectrum forced the GEPA to provide the single platform for the banks and the numerous SMEs to interact and find common grounds for business engagement.

The GEPA was ready to work with the banks to ensure a win-win engagement between the banks and the SMEs.

“Although it is empirically proven that loans to MSMEs constitute the riskiest of any bank’s investment portfolios, the incalculable benefits derived from a resilient and buoyant SME sector cannot be underplayed, especially in times of economic stagnation.”

Dr. Asare said AfCFTA opened opportunities for SMEs to extend their reach beyond their traditional markets and accessing these new frontiers would require both financial and non-financial support from all players in the ecosystem.

She thus encouraged the banks to have flexible credit facilities for SMES to engender industrial transformation.

Participants, though enthused about the networking session urged the banks to cut down on interest rates, particularly compound interest.