Mr Emmanuel Nyarko, Volta Regional Director of the National Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI), on Wednesday called on government to grant tax holidays to newly established enterprises especially those owned by young people.
This would ensure self initiatives and self employment to support the nation from its growing unemployment situation.
Mr Nyarko was delivering a talk on "The Engineer as Entrepreneur" at this year's open day of the Faculty of Engineering of Ho Polytechnic.
He said the country's private sector development must be founded on small scale production using locally designed and appropriate technologies developed by engineering students.
He urged engineering students to take advantage of the "current good economic environment" to apply for credit to open up or expand their businesses.
Mr Nyarko said what they would have to do was to acquire start up capital some of which he said could be gotten from the Venture Capital Trust Fund, MASLOC and other credit facilities.
He encouraged the formation of joint ventures, through the pooling of resources to ensure the translation of innovative ideas into tangible achievements.
Mr Francis Yao Agbenyo, a Senior Engineer at the Volta River Authority, who also gave a talk on "Maintenance Culture - The role of the Engineer", urged companies to integrate maintenance strategy into their business operations so as to stand firm in difficulty times.
Mr Seth Dzokoto, Dean of the Engineering Faculty of the Polytechnic said the open day was to afford the students the opportunity to interact with professionals and to create awareness for them to uphold the culture of maintenance and entrepreneurship.