Accra, July 29, GNA - A day's workshop to promote the formation of larger business units in Ghana was held in Accra on Tuesday with a call on private entrepreneurs to merge their businesses to grow them.

Mr K. S. Yamoah, Managing Director of the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), said if Small/Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) were well positioned they would impact greatly on the growth of the economy. He, therefore, urged the SMEs not to over depend on their limited capital facilities but to have the courage to enter into joint ventures and partnerships.

"It is far more beneficial to own 20 per cent shares in a big company than to own 100 per cent shares in ones private company."

The Private Enterprise Foundation (PEF) and the GSE organized the workshop with sponsorship from the African Project Development Facility for over 50 senior executives of the SME Sector.

The workshop under the theme: "Growing Business in Ghana: Raising Capital - the Stock Exchange Alternative", was the first in a series to encourage the formation of larger business units among the many small and medium scale enterprises in the Ghanaian economy.

Dr Osei Boeh-Ocansey, Director-General of PEF, said Ghana's current strategy for economic development placed a lot of emphasis on the promotion and development of the private sector of which SMEs constituted a fairly large proportion.

This strategy, he said, had stimulated a lot of thoughts and innovations as to how strategically the Sector might be made to play a more crucial role in the development process.

He said forming strategic alliances would enormously help the Sector to realise its full potentials and urged the entrepreneurs to take advantage of these opportunities to put themselves on the pedestal of SMEs in other fast developing countries, usually propelled by a dynamic private sector.

Dr Boeh-Ocansey said injecting dynamism into the private sector should logically be concentrated on the small and medium scale industries as they formed the very foundation for the country's economic and industrial development.

"It is in this regard that PEF is spearheading various programmes that seek to find alternative ways of doing better business in the light of opportunities that some institutions such as the Ghana Stock Exchange could offer SMEs."

He said he expressed the hope that the workshop would mark the watershed for SMEs to explore the many alternative ways of going about business when their means, strengths and capabilities did not allow them to go solo.

Mr Samuel Dzotefe, Acting Regional Manager of African Project Development Facility, said SMEs constituted about 80 per cent of the private sector and stressed the need for them to be assisted to expand their businesses.