Budget 2023: 70 Youth-led businesses benefit from pilot phase of YouStart initiative

The YouStart programme which commenced this year has been successfully piloted with 70 beneficiaries and an amount of GH¢1.98 million disbursed so far, Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori Atta has told Parliament.

He said the amount was disbursed to support youth-led (below the age of 40 years) SMEs in poultry, agro processing, ICT, textiles, and food processing sectors.

Presenting the 2023 Budget Statement, Mr Ofori Atta said the government had successfully signed an MoU with the Ghana Association of Banks (GAB) and 11 other commercial Banks for the implementation of the commercial component of the programme.

“Mr Speaker, a launch for the District Entrepreneurship Programme (DEP) component of the programme was held on 14th November, 2022 and it is expected that the launch of the Commercial component of the Programme will occur by the end of 2022 to enable qualified beneficiaries access support,” he stated.

One District One Factory (1D1F)

The Finance Minister also noted that the One-District-One-Factory (1D1F) Initiative continued to make remarkable progress in 2022.

To date, he said a total of 296 1D1F projects were at various stages of implementation, out of which 126 were currently operational, 143 were under construction, and 27 were pipeline projects.

He said the government would in 2023 intensify support to existing and new manufacturing enterprises with technical assistance, credit facilitation, and access to electricity and other infrastructure.