Italy to provide €20m for Ghana’s private sector development facility

The government of Italy will support Ghanaian Small and Medium and Enterprises (SMEs) with €20 million, under the Ghana Private Sector Development Facility (GPSDF).

The two countries have also pledged to deepen economic ties between them, and to remove all outstanding bottlenecks to ensure rapid disbursement of the amount to beneficiary SMEs.

The Italian Ambassador to Ghana, Madam Laura Carpini, announced these when she paid a courtesy call on the Minister for Trade and Industry, Mr Harruna Iddrisu, in Accra on Monday.

The Minister said the government of Ghana would “work hard to ensure continues disbursement of funds to support SMEs in Ghana”, because it considers improvement of the private sector as key to economic development.

Mr. Iddrisu called for a more relaxed and favourable terms to ensure that infant SMEs benefit from the fund.

Madam Laura Carpini pledged her government’s willingness to continue to support the growth of the Ghanaian economy, adding that the GPSDF project was a priority initiative, which would benefit Ghana and Italy.

The GPSDF is a SME programme, which seeks to support Ghanaian entrepreneurs with soft loan.

In 2011, the Italian government, through its development partners granted 20 million Euros to the government of Ghana to support private sector development.

In the first phase of the project, €11 million had been disbursed to SMEs in Ghana between 2004 and 2008.

Source: GNA