Ghana in 2000 exported goods worth 1.6billion dollars while it imported goods worth 2.2billion, showing a trade deficit of 600 million dollars. Mr Yaw Asafo-Marfo, Minister of Finance gave these figures at the opening of a six-day international workshop on planning improved performance for Africa’s small and medium enterprises exports in Accra.

The workshop is being jointly organised by the National Investment Bank (NIB) and the Association of African Development Finance Institutions, a continental body to which development financial institutions belong.

It is the first in the series of aims at bringing together 30 participants I the export industry to enable them acquire entrepreneurial and planning skills and to exchange ideas concerning export logistics and funding. He attributed Ghana’s low export performance to the fact that most of the small and medium enterprises were under performance.

“If you look at the structure of one economy, almost all the export revenues are generated from primary sources, which means that the contribution of the SMEs are marginal”, he said. Mr Osafo-Marfo said that the success stories of all developed economies and emerging economies attest to the fact that SMEs drive economic growth export performance and generate employment.

He about 60 to 80 percent of employment outside the government sector is attributable to SMEs and they also contribute about 40 to 60 per cent to export in most countries. He noted that in order to put dynamism into SMEs, there should be the spirit of entrepreneurship inculcated into Ghanaians. The Minister said currently, there is a new breed of young Ghanaians desirous of becoming entrepreneurs who must be encouraged.

He explained that Ghana needs a new breed of an entrepreneur who is self-confident, multi-skilled, innovative, result-oriented and a risk-taker who enjoys hard work and is totally committed to the business and has a single-mindedness of purpose.

Mr Osafo-Marfo said it is essential to establish facilitating institutions like an export promotion agency not only to offer training, advice and counselling on trade related issues, but also help build capacity for exporter through knowledge dissemination on markets, ISO 9,000 certification, product labelling and other requirements.

Mr Bisi Ogunjubi, Vice President of African Development Bank (ADB) noted that because of the perception the SMEs are risky; there are few financial support systems for them. He suggested that to rectify the problems, banks should like credit programmes to saving scheme. Mr Ogunjubi said, for SMEs to withstand the intense global market competition, SMEs have to network and build alliances.

He urged African governments to direct their support to SMEs to improving their internal efficiencies. Mr Daniel C. Gyimah, Managing Director, NIB said that development finance institutions are very important because of the specific roles they play in the economy.

In this regard, he urged government not to yield to pressures to dispose off the development financial institutions in the country. He also appealed to the ADB to help NIB to upgrade the facilities in its training school.