Tamale, July 17, GNA - Mr Ernest Debrah, Northern Regional Minister has appealed to investors to take advantage of the improved infrastructure that the government had put in place to locate businesses in the rural areas of the region to stem the exodus of the youth to the south. He said there were a lot of business opportunities in the region but these had remained untapped due to ignorance.

Mr Debrah said this in a speech read for him at the closing of a 10-day Entrepreneurship Training Workshop organised for 26 entrepreneurs and graduates from tertiary institutions from the Northern and Upper East Regions.

TechnoServe Ghana in collaboration with National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), a United States business development NGO, organised the workshop, the first of its kind in the region. The participants were equipped with knowledge and skills required to establish and manage profitable and sustainable businesses. The Minister said the government relied more on the private sector to provide the impetus for national growth and development and would therefore create a favourable environment for the sector to contribute its quota to the national economy.

He urged the participants to form co-operatives to increase their capital to have easier access to loans.

Mr Debrah thanked TechnoServe, the NFTE and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) for their assistance and urged the participants to let the newly acquired skills reflect in their businesses.

Mr Chris Bakari, who stood in for the Country Director of TechnoServe, said the training was for entrepreneurs and young school leavers who had business inclination and were looking forward to implementing their own business ideas.

He noted that the failure of small businesses to grow despite interventions, was due to lack of focus on business skills development and said TechnoServe was providing services that sought to fill that gap.

Mr Bakari said the TechnoServe's collaboration with NFTE was therefore strategic to provide the needed business skills development opportunities to small business operators to facilitate good management and growth that would enhance rural economies and living conditions of the people.