Believe Begin Become 2010 launched

Mr John Gyetuah, out-going Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, on Wednesday reiterated the need to develop the private sector to serve as the engine of growth.

This he said would pave the way in dealing with the key growth challenges facing the country.

“To this end, government will continue to create an enabling environment, put in place the necessary policy programmes, incentive packages and appropriate legal, social and regulatory framework for private sector investment,” he said.

Mr Gyetuah made the call when he launched this year’s “Believe, Begin, Become”, Ghana’s National Business Plan and Entrepreneurship Development Competition, in Accra.

The competition, sponsored by Google.org and managed by TechnoServe, a non-governmental organisation with other partners, is a six-month training and mentoring programme aimed at teaching promising entrepreneurs how to develop and manage sustainable businesses.

Winners of the competition will have access to capital awards of 100,000 dollars in cash and in-kind, and an aftercare programme that will provide technical assistance long after the end of the competition.

Mr Gyetuah noted that the competition is critical to unearth young and talented entrepreneurs to enhance Ghana’s competitiveness as “new services, products, processes and innovations increase efficiency thereby, improving the competitive strength of the economy”.

He explained that entrepreneurship is now seen as a requisite ingredient in the global economy and expressed government’s vision of creating a nation of innovative entrepreneurs through the promotion of a deep entrepreneurial culture among the Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

Mrs Essie Anno-Sackey, a Team Member of “Believe Begin Become”, noted that Ghana’s private sector is young and growing and that entrepreneurs needed to be increased, equipped with the wherewithal to succeed amidst the challenges that existed in the industry.

The competition, she said, would be an effective platform to educate SMEs and entrepreneurs on the realities of the market “rather than leaving them to rely on the inexperience and naivety characteristic of enthusiastic new entrepreneurs”.

The mode of application is that an applicant must be a Ghanaian, be at least 18 years of age and propose the expansion of an existing business operating for at least two years.

Businesses must be agribusiness and processing; value-added agricultural products or processing services; tourism; hospitality and foreign domestic tourism; private sector solutions to water or sanitation related products and services and light manufacturing.

Forms are available at www.believe-begin-become.com and TechnoServe offices in Ghana.

Source: GNA