About 1,000 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) will benefit from the first phase of a business capacity-building workshop aimed at boosting the competitiveness of the private sector.
Aimed
at overcoming the effects of COVID-19, the workshop which began early this
month will provide the business owners and managers with the needed tools to
improve on their commercial operations and enable them to remain competitive.
The
workshop, organised by the Ghana National Chamber of Commerce and Industry
(GNCCI), in collaboration with Development Bank Ghana (DBG), will train
businesses to scale up their operations as well as adopt operating models that
better position them to access loans from DBG’s participating financial
institutions.
The workshop will be replicated and
organised in five locations: Accra, Koforidua, Tarkwa, Takoradi and Cape Coast.
Participants
will have access to five pillars of the Ghana Integrated Financial Ecosystem
(GIFE) digital platform which are the SME financial empowerment platform and
marketplace, and financial trade corridor.
Others
are connected digital financing, reputational building and equity growth.
SMEs contribution
The
President of GNCCI, Clement Osei-Amoako, at a business skill development
programme in Accra on August 15, said the contributions of the SMEs were
critical to the sustainability of the economy as they contributed 70 per cent
of the country’s GDP in spite of the many challenges.
“The
chamber's rationale for this collaboration is informed by its deep insight and
foresight of the persistent issues affecting the business community,” he said.
He
urged member firms to maximise the unique opportunity offered by the GIFE, the
digital platform, within the five pillars.
He
said participants were taken through environmental, social and governance
practices, focusing on other areas such as financial management system and
accessing DBG three-year loan /introduction participating financial
institutions, risk management (financial, non-financial, strategic) and
marketing, and market development strategies.
Mr Osei-Amoako said the contributions
of the chamber to the growth and development of the Ghanaian private sector
could not be overemphasised.
Accordingly,
the GNCCI has yet again taken a bold initiative to collaborate with DBG, to
first and foremost, empower its member firms with the requisite business skills
to scale up their business operations and enhance their attractiveness to
access long-term capital.
He
said the chamber’s robust analytical framework that periodically mobilised
business diagnostics data allowed it to document and track the growth and
performance of businesses, industries and policy institutions in Ghana.
The
president said the chamber remained dedicated to the growth and prosperity of
businesses through its cutting-edge business support.
Long-term capital
The
Deputy Chief Executive Officer of DBG, Michael Mensah-Baah, said small business
owners often had no access to the long-term capital they needed to grow and
were seen as too risky by the banks.
“Our
business model allows us to leverage the networks and existing infrastructure
of banks and financial institutions that partner us to provide business
advisory services and training in addition to financing,” he said.
He said the DBG had designed a system
to relieve the bottlenecks that had hindered the availability of long-term,
competitively priced loans to SMEs.
“Addressing
the lack of long-term financing that drives the kinds of investment that will
lead to sustainable growth is a gap that must be addressed,” he said.
He
said the bank employed a wholesale banking model where it provided funding to
eligible financial institutions to on-lend to Ghanaian businesses in targeted
industry sectors.
“DBG
has identified agribusiness, manufacturing, ICT and high-value services as the
catalytic sectors of the economy to focus on,” he added.
Source: Graphic Online