“We will provide SMEs, not only with capital but at concessionary interest rates of nine per cent per annum to address the access to finance challenge that SMEs have had all this while,” Mr Bright Evans Darko, Head of SME Department, GEXIM, said.

He said this in an interview with the Ghana News Agency after the final regional sensitisation exercise on the Small and Medium-sized Enterprise Growth and Opportunity (SME GO) initiative, in Accra, on Wednesday, September 18.

The Greater Accra sensitisation climaxed the 16-regional engagement with SMEs and other stakeholders, officially opening the SME GO initiative for implementation.

Mr Darko encouraged interested businesses to quickly sign up for the programme by contacting the Ghana EXIM Bank, Consolidated Bank Ghana (CBG), and the Ghana Enterprises Agency (GEA) for support.

He asked SMEs who apply for financial support under the SME GO initiative to wait for a 30-day turnaround period for a response from the participating financial institutions.

He stated that the Bank would also provide technical and production assistance to small businesses using its yet-to-be-established modern food processing plant to spur value addition and export of Ghanaian products.