The Professional Print Excellence programme was held in partnership with Invest in Africa, a cross-sector partnership of companies with the vision to create thriving African economies working with private and local public sector companies.

It aimed to improve the commercial and technical skills of 22 local professional printing SMEs by providing them with focused training to help run large volumes of business and deliver world-class printing products and services.

Owners and managers of the local SMEs were trained and mentored over a year, which included a two-week intensive entrepreneurial, business management and business planning skills programme that was delivered by third party experts such as Empretec and Ernst and Young.

In addition, technical skills were provided by Canon trainers with support from Invest in Africa and MFI International Group. The partnership between the two organisations was established in response to a study conducted by Canon in 2015 to understand the professional printing industry in Ghana.

Speaking at the graduation ceremony in Accra, Mr Ayman Aly, Marketing Manager, Canon Middle East, said the training programme set the stage for building the capacity of the selected SMEs in the printing sector to help position them to increase competitiveness and generate profit.

He said Canon commissioned a market research for Ghana and found that some corporate organisations were often using print providers in foreign countries for their print requirements.

Mr Aly said some companies explained that they could be persuaded to have more material printed within Ghana if printing quality improved. He said the trainees had benefited from how to use the latest technologies and new trends in printing in order to fulfil the growing needs of big organisations to achieve good quality print in Ghana.

Mr Sam Brandful, Ghana Manager for Invest in Africa, said the SMEs were selected through the Invest in Africa's Africa Partner Pool, Ghana’s first cross-sector online business platform that connected larger international and Ghanaian companies to local business across sectors.

He said the SMEs would be assisted financially to acquire the modern technologies in the printing sector to improve quality service. Mr Emmanuel Kpakpo Brown, the Manager of Inkexpress Business Solutions, and a beneficiary of the programme in an interview with the Ghana News Agency said the programme had had a notable impact on him to deliver quality services to meet international standards.