Accra, Feb. 27, GNA - State institutions would be required under a new initiative, Policy of Domestic Content, to rely on locally manufactured goods for their logistic requirements as part of moves to shore-up indigenous companies, Vice President John Dramani Mahama announced on Friday.

He said specific provisions on the initiative were likely to be made in the 2009 budget or fiscal policy, the essence of which, he said, was to "generate a momentum" that could help to propel indigenous businesses to bloom.

Interacting with a delegation of OMATEK, a joint Ghanaian-Nigerian ICT concern, at the Castle, Osu, on Friday, Vice President called on Ghanaians to patronize locally made goods and by so doing demonstrate their commitment towards moves aimed at making small enterprises flourish.

He said to grow up Ghana's economy substantially; there was need for citizens to patronize their own products and cultural artefacts as a way of mobilizing indigenous capital for development. The Vice President said it was incumbent for state organizations to procure locally made goods to help generate income and create employment for the large majority of unemployed youths. Tracing the emergence of industrialized societies, Vice President Mahama said almost all of them owed their current state of development to reliance on indigenous businesses and asked Ghanaians to be buoyed up by that experience.

The Vice President commended the management of OMATEK, which deals in the assemblage of completely knocked down computer parts, for building on President Kwame Nkrumah's idea of Africa developing on the basis of an inter-regional trading, and said the NDC administration would continue along that path.

He called for further cooperation among businessmen of the two countries in other sectors of the economy other than the banking so as to build a solid regional market able to withstand global financial pressures. Madam Florence Seriki, Chief Executive Officer of OMATEK, pleaded with government to bring about strategies that would enable students, particularly tertiary students, to own their own computers at reasonable prices.

Musiliu Olatunde Obanikro, Nigerian High Commissioner, corroborated the Vice President's notion of expanding inter-regional trading for income generation since that could help reduce poverty on the continent. Accompanying the OMATEK delegation, which included academics, business captains and politicians, was Dr Agrey Ntim, Immediate-Past Minister of Communications.