SMEs urged to seek business development services
Mr Mamuda Osman, Ashanti Regional Director of the Ministry of Trade, and Industries, has called on small and medium scale enterprises to seek business development services to help promote growth and sustainability of businesses.
He said the government as part of efforts to sustain the development, growth, and expansion of businesses, had established the Business
Resources Centres (BRC) to serve as a one-stop-shop to complement the existing Business Advisory Centres for small and medium scale
entrepreneurs.
It was therefore important for SMEs to seek technical assistance to grow their businesses and sustain them for future generations.
Speaking at the launch of the 2022 boosting Green Employment and Enterprises in Ghana (GrEEn) Innovation Challenge in Kumasi, Mr
Osman bemoaned the situation in the country where the death of a business owner automatically led to the death of the business as well.
He said it was important for businesses to seek knowledge to grow and expand production to ensure that the companies existed even after
the death of the owner.
Mr Osman mentioned mismanagement on the part of successors, lack of succession plan, improper transfer of business knowledge to
potential successor, not separating daily life spending and activities from business spending among others, as some of the reason
businesses collapsed after the death of the owner.
He said the government had over the years been implementing aggressive industrialization programmes to make Ghana the new
manufacturing hub of Africa.
The development of SMEs, Export Development, Development of Industrial Parks and Special Economic Zones, Business Regulatory Reforms, Strategic Anchor Industries and One District One Factory, are all strategies towards achieving that goal.
Mr Osman pointed out that, SMEs constituted over 90 per cent of businesses operating in Ghana and needed to develop capacities and
innovate to be more competitive.
The GrEEn Innovative Challenge is targeting SMEs and entrepreneurs in the GrEEn Incubation and Acceleration Programme in the Ashanti
and Western regions to award matching grant of up to 25,000.00 Euros to 15 individual businesses to scale up operations.
It is being implemented by the Netherlands Development Organization (SNV) with funding from the European Union to pitch businesses that
have graduated or currently enrolled in its six-month Incubation and GrEEn Acceleration programme.