New businesses will be exempted from paying tax within their first year of operation, Minister for Business Development, Ibrahim Mohammed Awal has said.

The minister brought this to the fore at the Kenya Trade Expo Ghana 2017 held at Horizons Office Ghana, Friday.

While reiterating government’s commitment to strengthen Private-Public-Partnership to secure industrial transformation, Alhaji Mohammed Ibrahim Awal said the move is to enable Small and Medium Scale Enterprises to thrive and reduce the rate of unemployment in the country.

“If you look at the SMEs factor, about 75% of them or 80% do not survive after three years all because they lack access to capital; they lack skills. As a ministry, we intend to pluck this loophole by training young people to help. We also want to ensure that at least, startups have one year tax exemption. So while they don’t pay the taxes, they can use this money and expand their businesses. We need to help young businesses to grow. Young people in this country must be supported to enhance their businesses,” he noted.

The minster further indicated that government has introduced measures to stabilize the local currency and reduce significantly the cost of borrowing. These include tax abolishment and cuts such as the abolishment of the 5% VAT on Real Estate sales, re-introduction of 3% flat VAT rate for traders and the abolition of the 17.5% VAT on domestic airline tickets.

These, according to him, have been done to make the atmosphere conducive and less expensive for doing business in Ghana as well as triggering economic growth through enterprise upgrading.

Kenya Trade Expo “offers participants a chance to promote their businesses and products to the right audience in Ghana and Kenya, stimulate intra-African conversations around joint ventures and partnerships for economic prosperity” as well as “providing participants a platform for understanding business policies and procedures both in Ghana and Kenya”.