The report that Catalyst Fund Inclusive Digital Commerce Accelerator is to support four Ghanaian digital commerce companies with grants and technical support is one of the leading stories in the Ghanaian press on Friday.
The Ghanaian Times reports that the Catalyst Fund Inclusive Digital Commerce Accelerator is to support four Ghanaian digital commerce companies with grants and technical support.
The companies OZÉ, Shopa, Swoove, and Tendo, will be the second cohort to receive funding and support.
The Accelerator, managed by BFA Global in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation and the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST), focuses on building the resilience of Ghana’s micro and small enterprises (MSEs).
The companies selected for the second cohort are tackling challenges across the retail sector for Ghana’s informal MSEs.
Their focus is on enabling the digital transformation of MSEs through solutions, including digital logistics, delivery services, digitisation of merchant records, inventory management, and access to affordable inventory financing.
Each of the four companies will receive up to US$120,000 in grant funding, in addition to bespoke expert-led venture acceleration support, connections with Catalyst Fund’s growing global Circle of Investors and Circle of Corporate Innovators, and in-market expertise from MEST.
The newspaper says that the Japanese Ambassador to Ghana, Mr Tsutomu Himeno has encouraged Ghanaians to take advantage of Kaizen, a skill development and training programme to enhance productivity.
MrHimeno was speaking to the Ghanaian Times in an exclusive interview in Accra last week.
Kaizen is a Japanese philosophy that means “continuous improvement” to enhance quality, productivity, safety and efficiency of enterprises while reducing waste.
Apart from skill training for more than 254 enterprises under the collaboration between the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the National Board for Small Scale Industries, the Japanese Ambassador told the Ghanaian Times that Kaizen also trained health personnel to improve quality service delivery.
Under the Kaizen programme, beneficiary companies, particularly medium and small scale enterprises were taught how to use friendly technology to accomplish difficult tasks.
Currently, the Japanese Ambassador noted that beneficiaries of Kiazenprogramme are able to use little time to produce more, thus saving cost and preventing waste.
MrHimeno said training was essential to ensuring a successful business but added that liking it to education was key to developing a prosperous economy.
The Japanese envoy said that he was optimistic about the future of Ghana and advised Ghanaian youth to venture into agriculture to help spur economic growth.
The Ghanaian Times also reports that non-resident investors are said to hold about 19.5 percent (Ghs 33.8 billion) of the country’s total domestic debt.
The 19.5 percent domestic debt held by non-resident investors is as a result of their investments into government’s short-term-dated debt instruments such as the 91, 182 and 364 days treasury bills.
According to data contained in the Central Bank’s Quarterly Bulletin for the second quarter of 2021, the 19.5 percent hold of domestic debt by non-resident investors marks a decrease of 0.8 percent when compared to the 20.3 percent holdings of domestic debt in Q2 2020.
Meanwhile, the Bank of Ghana’s holdings of domestic debt at the end of Q2 2021 was Ghs 34,671.7 million, representing 20.0 percent of the total domestic debt holdings.
The Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) held Ghs 52,619.1 million (30.3 per cent). SSNIT held Ghs 574.1 million (0.3 per cent), Insurance companies – Ghs 949.1 million (0.5 percent), whilst “Other holders” made up of Rural Banks, Firms and Institutions and Individuals held Ghs 51,198.8 million (29.5 per cent).
Comparative holdings at the end of the second quarter of 2020 were Bank of Ghana (18.7 per cent), Deposit Money Banks (31 per cent), SSNIT (0.5 per cent), Insurance Companies (0.6 percent), while other holders had 28.9 per cent respectively.
The stock of domestic debt at the end of Q2 2021, the BoG asserts, stood at Ghs 173,835.2 million, compared to Ghs 121,966.8 million recorded in Q2 2020, adding that the growth in the domestic debt stock reflected increases in the short, medium, and long-term bonds and stocks by Ghs 6,426.8 million, Ghs 35,438.0 million and Ghs 10,003.6 million, respectively.
The newspaper says that Ghana has recorded 33 more cases of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID -19), shooting up the country’s case count to 130,041as at October 23.
According to the Ghana Health Service (GHS) website monitored by the Ghanaian Times yesterday, 127,050 people have recovered from the disease.
Five more people have died from the disease increasing the death toll to 1,174with 40 people in severe conditions and 13peoplein critical state.
The GHS has indicated on its website that the country currently has 1,817 active cases.
Routine surveillance conducted indicated that 49,312 people tested positive out of 443,448total number of tests conducted while 77,841 people tested positive through enhanced contact tracing out of 856,904 total tests done.
International travelers (KIA) tests showed that 2,888 people tested positive out of 557,611 tests conducted.
The service therefore said it had so far conducted 1,857,963 tests since the outbreak of the disease in March 2020 with a positivity rate of 7.0per cent.
On the regional case count, Greater Accra leads with 70,298confirmed cases, followed by Ashanti with 20,698 cases.
Western has 7,497 confirmed cases, while Eastern has 6,565 cases.
GIK/APA