‘Take advantage of credit facilities’

Story: Boahene Asamoah
THE Managing Director of the Guarantee Fund for Private Investments in West Africa (GARI), Mr Pierre Yaovi Sedjro, has called on the private sector in Ghana to take advantage of opportunities offered by the fund to expand their business activities in the sub-region.
He expressed regret that given the increasing economic activities in the country, the fund had been able to approve only one proposal in the country since its 11 years of existence.
“This is a drop in the ocean, given the increasing economic activity in Ghana”, Mr Sedjro stated.
Mr Sedjro made this known at the forum on Financial Guarantee for Investments, which was organised by GARI with support from ProInvest and Perform Strategy in Accra yesterday.
He said the sub-region had huge potential for the private sector to do business, especially in the small and medium scale Enterprises (SMEs) sector.
He said over the past 11 years, the fund had provided funds to the tune of $162 million and had invested a total of $1.174 billion in over 100 projects across the sub-region.
“In spite of these achievements, it is a modest one since the potential in the sub-region is huge”, Mr Sedjro stated.
He said the fund was determined to contribute to the development of the private sector and support the operations of the financial sector to ensure investments and development.
The First Counsellor and Head of Marco-Economic and Trade Sector of the delegation of the European Commission in Ghana, Mr Dick Naezer, said there were tremendous opportunities for development in the sub-region and added that that would only come about when there was an investment-friendly climate.
He said the adoption of the Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS II) by the government was a clear indication that the growth component was very important in the country’s development agenda.
He said private investments were also an important source of development and indicated that over the past few years private sources of funds were pushing away public funding in the sub-region.
Mr Naezer said the forum was timely since the sub-region was strengthening its regional integration process.
The chairman of the of the Board of Administrators of the Eximgaranty Ghana Limited, Mr Felix Ntirakwa, said the synergy between Eximgaranty and GARI was to support the private sector to effectively access funds for development.
He called on participants to take advantage of the funds available to enable them grow their businesses beyond the shores of this country.