EXIM bank to double up operations of EDAIF
The acting Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Export Import Bank (Ghana EXIM), Dr Barfour Osei, has reiterated the relevance of an EXIM bank for the country’s agriculture and export sector.
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He said an EXIM bank in operation would speed up the successes made by the Export Trade, Agricultural and Industrial Development Fund (EDAIF) in Ghana’s export sector.
Dr Osei, who said this at a workshop in Accra, indicated that the transformation of EDAIF into the EXIM bank would help address some of the operational challenges in the past.
The three-day workshop was organised by the EXIM Bank Ghana in partnership with the University of Cape Coast (UCC) to train a group of graduate entrepreneurs from 75 businesses in the writing of business plans.
The training was under the bank’s programme, the Graduate Enterprise Development Initiative (GEDI) which is to be implemented by UCC.
The overall objective of the workshop was to equip participants with the requisite skills to write business plans that would enable them to launch and grow agribusiness, including export trade.
Start-up capital
The programme is expected to award 20 businesses that have crafted the best plans with a start-up capital of GH¢100,000 each for the expansion of their businesses.
Touching on the workshop, Dr Osei explained that the government expected the GEDI to create opportunity for graduate entrepreneurs to crystallise their ideas into viable and profitable businesses.
Dr Osei stressed that participants should think outside the box and come out with something unique and spectacular in kind that would offer some promise that would meet the needs of consumers.
He charged the participants to be innovative and come out with business plans that will translate into value adding products that can compete with established products.
He noted that since the participants from the 75 business applicants constituted the pioneer group, their performance would go a long way to impact the prospects or otherwise of GEDI in the future.
Dr Osei said GEDI was complementary to the Youth Enterprise Support (YES), which was launched in August 2014, and sought to contribute to efforts to make Ghana an export-led country.
Facilitator
The Lead Facilitator of GEDI, Professor Rosemond Boohene, for her part, stated that the purpose of GEDI was to reduce graduate unemployment and to promote entrepreneurship among the youth.
Prof. Boohene, who is also a lecturer at the Business School of the UCC, opined that the tag unemployed graduate was not the best, and therefore persuaded the participants to work assiduously to rid themselves of such negative accolades.