Mr Alan Kyeremanten, Minister of Trade and Industry, has commissioned a Business Resource Centre (BRC) at Agona West Municipality of the Central Region to promote local economic development.

The BRC is also designed to ensure that industrial development is spread to every corner of the country.

Mr Kyeremanten said the establishment of BRCs in selected districts was one of such interventions by government to grow local businesses.

He said government believed in supporting the private sector to boost economic activities across the country.

He said the Centres were One-Stop enterprise support centres providing full range of business development services, investment facilitation and information services to potential and existing entrepreneurs and business enterprises at the district level.

The Minister said BRCs, were established under the Rural Enterprises Programme, a government development cooperation programme financed by the African Development Bank (AfDB) and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

The programme started in 1995 with the National Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI), now the Ghana Enterprise Agency and GRATIS Foundation as the two implementing agencies.

He said upon the assumption of office of government in 2017, the Ministry had taken steps to realign the Programme to respond to the emerging opportunities in the country by playing a catalytic role in the government’s Industrial Transformation Agenda, through the implementation of the 1D1F initiative and other related interventions.

“The Agona Swedru Business Resource Centre is one of the 67 BRCs being established by the Government led by Ministry of Trade and Industry and the NBSSI (Ghana Enterprise Agency) across all the 16 regions of the country with funding from the African Development Bank and IFAD,” he said.

He said 37 of them, including the one being commissioned had commenced operations and the remaining 30 were under construction.

“All BRCs will be equipped with modern IT infrastructure and networked through a Virtual Private Network to facilitate efficient delivery of their activities,” he added.

Mr Kyeremanten said BRCs would liaise extensively with business regulatory and financial institutions such as the Registrar Generals’ Department, Ghana Standards Authority, Ghana Revenue Authority, Environmental Protection Agency and Food and Drugs Authority in providing a full boutique of business support services at the district level.
He said in supporting 1D1F companies at the district level, the BRCs would provide services to other Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises including technical and management training; business Counselling and preparation of Business Plans.

Others are capacity Building for Institutions, facilitate access to financial services and credit and facilitate access to markets.

He said the Centres were to be managed with strong private sector participation with oversight and supervision by Ghana Enterprise Agency.

He expressed gratitude to the Chiefs and the District Assembly for providing the land for the project and urged the people to support the Centre as it provided the requisite assistance to the private sector to promote local economic activities.