Italian Government is to release initial 10 million to support growth of small business

Laura Carpini with Haruna Iddrisu in a discussion The Italian Government is to release initial €10 million to support the growth of Small and Medium-scale Enterprises (SMEs) in Ghana through a Credit Facility. This was disclosed when the Italian Ambassador, Laura Carpini paid a visit to Trade & Industry Minister, Haruna Idrissu at his office this morning. Ghanaian-Italian Project was established in 2003 to provide support to the small and medium enterprises in Ghana. Their discussions also focused on how to improve economic relations between the two countries especially the balance of trade, which is in favour of Italy and investment. The two identified areas such as agro-processing, jewellery production, leather-related industry, energy, agriculture and infrastructure where the two countries could benefit from joint partnerships. Haruna Idrissu, in a remark, said the position of government is to improve infrastructure through Public Private Partnership (PPP). On energy, Trade and Industry Minister said the interest of Government is in the generation of power to support the growth of business and gave the assurance that government will provide strategic incentives where necessary to investors. On her part, Ambassador Laura Carpini gave the assurance that Italian investors would respect the laws of Ghana and pledged that under no circumstances would the investors flout any of our laws. She said Italy will continue to support Ghana in diverse ways to deepen the cooperation between the two countries.