The Minister of Information’s commendation to the Ghana Exim Bank for providing Ghanaian businesses with the needed support to package and export their products into new markets is one of the leading stories in the Ghanaian press on Wednesday.
The Ghanaian Times reports that the Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, has commended Ghana Exim Bank for providing Ghanaian businesses with the needed support to package and export their products into new markets.
According to him, the bank and the Ghana Export Promotion Agency must be applauded for the continuous efforts to promote Ghanaian products on local and international markets.
The Minister gave the commendation at the relaunch of the bank’s Made-In-Ghana Fair dubbed “Tuesday Market” yesterday.
The Tuesday Market is a fair organised by Eximbank to showcase businesses being supported by bank facilities to improve production, packaging and potential export.
“Ghana is in a unique place to increase production of food value chain products, packaging and exports, at a time when the World Bank is warning of a potential food security crisis globally”.
“Again, it is heartwarming to see so many young people and young women venturing into the agric processing value chain. I am also impressed with the profile of persons I am seeing here today. I see lots of people hitherto described as working class blue collar people investing in businesses in this value chain. Returns are higher than the usual treasury bills,” Mr Nkrumah said.
Tuesday Market is a platform created by Ghana Exim Bank for its clients and producers of Made-In-Ghana products to showcase their products. It also serves as a one-stop shop for the general public to purchase anything locally manufactured from nicely packaged food items, cosmetic products, garments and textiles, leather products and many more.
The newspaper says that the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) is warning that prices of final goods will continue to rise if the high Producer Price Inflation rate in the country is not checked.
Data from the Ghana Statistical Service shows that the year-on-year producer inflation for all industries was 29.3 per cent in March 2022.
The 29.3 percent year-on-year producer inflation rate for all industries indicates that between March 2021 and March 2022, prices received by domestic producers for the production of their goods and services increased by 29.3 percent.
In March 2021, the producer price inflation rate for all industries was 13.0 per cent. The rate decreased to a record 10.9 per cent in April 2021 but increased to 11.8 percent in May 2021. The rate decreased continuously to a record 8.1 percent in August 2021. Subsequently, the rate resumes an upward trend to increase continuously to a record 29.3 per cent in March 2022.
The Manufacturing subsector, which constitutes more than two-thirds of the total industry, increased by 7.2 per cent, recording the highest year-on-year producer price inflation rate of 36.0 percent.
In an interview with Citi Business News, the Greater Accra Regional Chairman of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), Tsonam Cleanse Akpeloo, noted that if the rising prices of inputs are not checked it will lead to more manufacturers becoming importers.
“The rate of the producer price inflation is significant because what it means is that, by the time the cost of inputs goes up by the levels we’ve seen, it ends up affecting the entire production cycle, the cost of production and the final price that goes to the final consumer. The reality is that the exchange rate instability we’ve witnessed in the past couple of weeks, has been part of the reason for the hike in the price of inputs producers’ use, as most of our inputs are imported. In as much as there are external factors affecting prices in Ghana, government needs to do its part to check the high price increases.”
The Graphic reports that the African Development Bank (AfDB) Group President, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, has garnered broad strong support for a robust 16th replenishment of the African Development Fund, the bank group’s concessionary lending arm that supports Africa’s low-income economies.
He said the replenishment efforts would continue through October, when partners were expected to make their pledges.
A statement issued from the headquarters of the bank said the AfDB President made the call just when he concluded a three-day official visit to Washington DC last Saturday.
Alongside the Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, the visit included several bilateral engagements with stakeholders on African development.
Dr Adesina affirmed to the shareholders that the African Development Fund’s impact on Africa, through their support, was massive and far reaching.
Meeting with the African Union’s Group of 15 Finance Ministers, Dr Adesina outlined the continent’s immediate challenges and the solutions that were being applied to tackle them successfully.
The statement said top of Dr Adesina’s list was a plan for massive food production in the face of a looming global food crisis caused by the Russia war in Ukraine, and the need for a more flexible and substantial replenishment of the African Development Fund.
Dr Adesina highlighted the bank’s innovative technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT), a programme operating across nine food commodities in more than 30 African countries.
He said the bank would mitigate the effects of the food crisis through an African Food Crisis Response and Emergency Facility – a dedicated facility that would provide African countries with the resources needed to raise local food production and procure fertiliser.
The newspaper says that the German Development Agency (GIZ) has held series of business formalisation and registration clinics for 500 small and medium Enterprises (SMEs) in five regions of the country.
The clinics are to sensitise SMEs entrepreneurs on the essence of business formalisation and sponsor the registration of some unregistered SMEs.
It was under the GIZ Ghana’s Regional Programme Support of Reform Partnerships.
In a press release issued by GIZ in Accra on April 8 stated that the clinics follow a series of workshops on business integrity and financial discipline held last year, where data collected by the consulting firm, Lyme Haus Solutions, indicated that only 38 per cent of participating businesses had registered with the Registrar General’s Department.
“The first two clinics have taken place in Tamale and Sunyani, with 200 participants. The first session of each clinic involves the training of participants on the importance of formalising their businesses, while the second session is a free registration of unregistered SMEs,” the release said.
GIK/APA