SMEs in Central Region asked to harness investment potentials
Small and Medium Scale Enterprises in the Central region have been urged to harness the investment opportunities available and transform them into concrete projects to help reduce poverty.
The Acting Executive Director of the Central Region Development Commission (CEDECOM), Mr Spencer Francis Taylor, who made the call on Thursday, said the region has comparative advantage in the areas of tourism, agriculture and the oil find in the Western Region.
Mr Taylor said this at the end of a three-day capacity building workshop for SMES in the Central Region, in Cape coast, on the theme “Promoting Small and Medium Enterprises Development through Networking with Business Development Service Institutions.”
The workshop, organized by the Enterprise Development Unit (EDU) of CEDECOM was attended by 25 SMEs, including members of the Forum for Small Scale Business Association (FOSSBA), and was to among others, help grow and enhance the competitiveness of SMES in the region, equip them with Management skills and competencies and enhance entrepreneurial capacities of entrepreneurs.
It was also to motivate entrepreneurs to aspire for success, promote networking among SMES, and expose the participants to basic financial management skills to ensure accountability as well as enhance the commitment and performance of the participants.
Mr Taylor said it was the mandate of the commission to play an advocacy role to enhance private sector development, build and strengthen their capacity to enable them to compete in the global market, and assured that it would continue to help the private sector to play its expected roles.
The Acting Executive Director tasked the participants to use the skills they had acquired to render quality services, adding that, many businesses fail because of the attitude of the businessmen and women towards their customers and urged them to ensure good customer relations to sustain their businesses.
He noted that with the current global trend it was important for SMEs to enter into public-private partnership, this he stressed would help in the development and growth of such businesses, adding that, his outfit would continue to monitor the progress of the SMES in the region to ensure they stay in business.
Mr Gabriel Fiatui Head of the Enterprise Development Department said his outfit recognizes the important role SMES play in the development and growth of the economy hence the training to improve upon their capacity.
He asked the smaller businesses to form cooperatives so that they can get support since organizations usually prefer to help associations and groups instead of individuals.
He said plans were advanced to organize nine of such workshops in the Twifo-Praso district and the Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abrem and Mfantseman Municipalities and that the participants would be trained on pricing, business plan, management skills, costing and book keeping .
He said training package is made up of nine training programmes and two conferences, which is targeted at 250 business owners, managers and service providers as well as skills training institutions across the central region.
Mr Lord-Lucas Vodzi, Lead Consultant of WOEF Consultancy LTD, underscored the important role of the private sector in the socio-economic development of the nation and pointed out that the government cannot afford to ignore the private sector and should therefore partner it at all times.
He called on the participants to embark on networking ventures and also adopt strategies that would enable them to plan, grow and sustain their businesses.
Reverend Asante Bordon, President of FOSSBA and course prefect commended CEDECOM for the programme and said it would go a long way to enhance their businesses and service delivery and called for regular capacity building workshops for SMES since business trends were constantly changing.
He appealed to the government to adequately resource the commission to enable it to play it’s expected role in bringing development to the region and to reduce poverty and hunger.
Source: GNA