SMEs require state support - Prof. Brimah
The Provost of Humanities and Social Science of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Professor Imoro Brimah, has urged the government to focus more attention on small businesses to turn around the fortunes of the country’s economy.
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He said the survival of the economy against the world giants and emerging markets depended largely on individual and small scale businesses with great innovation that could be translated into giant businesses to compete favourably in the global market place.
Prof. Brimah was speaking at this year’s scale up entrepreneurship clinic and seminar in Kumasi under the ‘Enhancing Growth in New Enterprises (ENGINE). ENGINE is a national business plan competition and entrepreneurship development programme dedicated to enhancing growth in new enterprises within Ghana.
The programme is funded by the UK government through Department for International Development (DFID) implemented by TechnoServe and supported by local businesses and professionals as well as the Business School of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).
Carve own production techniques
Prof. Brimah wants Ghana to learn from China by empowering and promoting innovation and doing businesses that are different from the rest of the world.
He said Ghana needed to design its own unique style of production which could also fit perfectly into the world market to compete and possibly overtake some of the giants in the next 10 years.
‘It is possible for us to produce the likes of Dangotey of Nigeria fame and others in the next 10 years,’ he said.
The clinic was to prepare individual business owners who would be expected to present business plans to enter the competition.
The numbers will be scaled down after the first presentation and those selected will be assisted and groomed especially on how to write a comprehensive business plan among others.
They will then make a final oral presentation before a team of panel including lecturers from the KNUST Business School to determine the winner.
The winner would be assisted with £6,000 seed money to invest in their chosen businesses, the runner up will also receive business support of up to £3,000. But all participants would benefit from technical assistance or an aftercare training to grow their businesses.
Aside that, they will benefit from a free consultancy training and coaching from the KNUST Business School under the guidance of the Acting Dean of the school, Dr Ahmed Agyapong.