The Bank of Ghana says it is setting aside about GH¢2 billion to finance small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) in the country.
Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Dr Ernest Addison said, “To further provide increased activity in the small and medium enterprise (SME) sector, the Bank of Ghana is setting aside 2 per cent of the banks’ primary reserve to support targeted lending to SMEs as part of the Enterprise Credit Scheme announced in the 2020 budget.”
He said, “we would expect that it should make resources available to the SMEs, the estimate is around GH¢2 billion. Hopefully, that should make a difference if all of that amount of resources are directed towards the SMEs.”
Dr Addison added, “These funds will be held at Bank of Ghana and will be available to banks that participate in the scheme.”
He said the move to support the SME sector has been operationalized. “This is almost immediately, I mean this is effective this MPC so we expect that these measures will be effective almost immediately.”
Meanwhile, The Bank of Ghana says it will be working closely with banks to ensure that banks do not pass on their operational inefficiencies and overhead costs to their clients.
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