The Chief Executive Officer of Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA), Dr. Afua Asabea Asare, says the Authority is ready to own the She trades and ST4 projects to enhance their benefits to Small, Medium and Micro small enterprises.
She said the two projects had been highly impactful to the cause of SMEs in the export sector.
The SheTrades Project aims to facilitate the participation of Women-Owned Businesses (WOBs) in international trade and increase job creation.
It increases their visibility and connect them to potential buyers, investors, suppliers and business support organizations and provide capacity building trainings including e-learning courses, on-site workshops and webinars, to teach new skills that will help WOBs grow their businesses as well as provide comprehensive support to attend national, regional and international buyer to seller trade events.
Dr Asabea was speaking during a meeting with the visiting Executive Director of the International Trade Centre (ITC) Ms. Pamela Coke-Hamilton.
GEPA has a strong relationship with ITC and implements most of the ITC’s support programmes targeted at both small and medium sized and women-owned businesses in the country.
The meeting allowed the ITC Executive Director to hear from the beneficiaries of some of the projects implemented in partnership with GEPA, specifically, the She-Trades and Trade for Sustainable Development (T4SD) programmes as part of her official visit to Ghana.
Dr Asabea lauded the ITC for the collaboration over the years and called for continued partnership to continue to collaborate with the centre on its various trade promotion interventions.
On her part, Ms Pamela Coke-Hamilton commended government on its various trade facilitating interventions, especially those for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).
She said this could help support young businesses to benefit from direct interventions.
“We want to see how we can work more in the value chains like the shea butter helping you develop more in terms of your digitalization, smart agriculture, value chain addition in agri-processing. All the various areas that we think have great potential in Ghana and for export elsewhere,” she indicated.
She said the government’s 1D1F programme could build sustainability across the nation’s business landscape and increase employment by multiple folds.
“So, I think what is really helpful for us is not only indirectly working with MSME’s and micro enterprises but also to have a governmental ecosystem and also institutional partner like GEPA to be able to work with you in partnership and get much greater result,” she added.
The beneficiaries extolled the benefits of the projects, especially the capacity building and support to attend national, regional and international buyer to seller trade events, to the growth of their businesses.
