A Deputy Minister of Finance, Mrs Mona Helen K. Quartey, has reiterated the government’s commitment to create an enabling environment to stimulate and ensure the growth of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the country.
According to her, the government recognised the pivotal role played by the sector in the growth and development of the economy and as such was devising means to address the current problems facing the sector.
She made these remarks when she addressed participants in a breakfast meeting organised by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in Accra on Friday.
The forum, which was held under the Sustaining Competitive and Responsible Enterprises (SCORE) programme, was geared towards creating a platform to enable government and private sector operators to deliberate and share ideas to accelerate the growth and development of the economy.
“SMEs contribute an estimated 49 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product and this target group has been identified as the catalyst for economic growth of the country, as they are a major source of income and employment,” she said.
Challenges and available remedies
Speaking on the theme: “Developing SMEs for Employment Generation: The Roles of Government and the Private Sector,” Mrs Quartey said the SME sector mostly experienced challenges such as accessing financial services, utility supply, access to local and sub-regional market, among others.
On measures to address the constraints, she said the government had developed the second phase of the financial sector reforms to ensure that the domestic financial market was the preferred source of finance.
Mrs Quartey stated that the initiative would help enhance the efficiency of mobilisation and allocation of funds in the financial market, as well as facilitate the development of venture capital and private equity industry.
Other perspectives
The Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Kweku Ricketts-Hagan, explained that the promotion of self-employment, mostly through SMEs, would enhance the generation of jobs to help in the promotion of inclusive economic development, especially in the face of the declining capacity of the public sector.
Mr Ricketts-Hagan stated that the ministry had developed a plan which would be implemented under the Ghana Shared Growth Development Agenda II to support the operations of SMEs in the country.