The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Enterprises Agency (GEA), Ms. Margaret Ansei, has urged small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to move beyond survival and focus on building productive businesses capable of creating jobs and generating greater economic value.
She said the dominant position of SMEs in Ghana’s economy made their growth and development critical to the country’s economic transformation.
Ms. Ansei said recognition and achievements in the SME space should not be treated merely as occasions for celebration but should encourage businesses to take greater responsibility for improving their operations and expanding their impact.
“Success needs to be celebrated, but it comes with responsibilities as well. What it means is that SMEs must try to make an impact,” she said.
She was speaking at an SME-related event where she highlighted the need for entrepreneurs to use opportunities and recognition as a springboard to strengthen their businesses.
According to Ms. Ansei, SMEs constitute about 90 percent of businesses in Ghana, meaning that their performance has significant implications for employment, household incomes and economic growth.
Recent business data cited by the GEA and other stakeholders also underline the dominance of small businesses in Ghana’s economy, with MSMEs estimated to account for more than 90 percent of businesses and a large share of employment.
Ms. Ansei said the large presence of SMEs meant that Ghana’s economic progress could not depend solely on large corporations, stressing the need to create an environment in which smaller businesses could survive, grow and employ more people.
She said SMEs should therefore seek to improve their productivity, adopt better business practices and take advantage of available opportunities to expand their operations.
The GEA Chief Executive said the objective should be to build enterprises that could make a measurable contribution to the economy rather than businesses remaining at subsistence level.
Her comments come against the backdrop of persistent challenges confronting Ghanaian SMEs, particularly limited access to finance, inadequate tools and skills, weak market access and difficulties in scaling businesses.
The GEA has previously identified access to finance, tools and skills as some of the critical constraints preventing SMEs from scaling, and has said it is working to provide affordable financing and digital skills training while reducing the cost of doing business.
Ms. Ansei said addressing those challenges required collaboration among government, financial institutions, development partners and the private sector.
She said the GEA would continue to support entrepreneurs through programmes designed to improve their capacity, access to finance, digital skills and market opportunities.
The Agency’s mandate is to promote and develop Ghana’s micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, with a focus on growth, sustainability, competitiveness and job creation.
Ms. Ansei said interventions aimed at SMEs should ultimately translate into businesses that could create decent employment, increase production and compete in domestic and international markets.
She cited the need for entrepreneurs to take advantage of digitalisation and other emerging opportunities to improve the way they operate and reach customers.
The GEA has in recent years placed increasing emphasis on digital transformation and market access, including initiatives such as the MSME Digital Gateway, which brings together information on business support, finance and market opportunities.
Ms. Ansei said stronger SMEs would also be better positioned to take advantage of opportunities created by regional trade and initiatives such as the African Continental Free Trade Area.
She urged entrepreneurs to see their businesses not only as sources of personal income but also as platforms for job creation, innovation and wealth creation.
She said the country’s large SME base presented an opportunity to address unemployment if businesses were supported and encouraged to move from small-scale survival activities into sustainable enterprises.
The GEA CEO therefore called on entrepreneurs to use recognition, training and business support opportunities as stepping stones towards building stronger and more resilient enterprises.
She said Ghana’s economic transformation would require SMEs to become more productive, innovative and capable of creating greater value.
The call places renewed emphasis on the need to measure the success of SME support not only by the number of entrepreneurs trained or businesses recognised, but by whether those businesses survive, expand, employ more people and generate higher economic value.
