The Trade and Industry Ministry is hoping to train more than 150,000 people in artisanal vocations and various small and medium-scale enterprise (SME) activities, starting 2012. The Rural Enterprises Programme, the vehicle to facilitate the training, is expected to create over 66,000 small businesses in a minimum of 160 districts across the country where the programme will reach. Speaking in an exclusive interview with the Graphic Business, the Minister of Trade and Industry, Ms Hanna Tetteh, said “this is very important part of our private sector development initiative because we are looking at the development of micro, small enterprises. The private sector initiative is not only about attracting large enterprises; it is about having different levels of business, all providing different goods and services," Ms Tetteh said. Training will be offered to people in micro business activities such as hairdressing, dressmaking, batik, tie and dye, welding, painting, spraying, electrical, fish farming, animal husbandry and agre-processing. Under the first phase, which ended last year, the programme covered 66 districts and trained a total of 55,000 artisans, leading to the creation of 22,000 businesses in rural communities. Since the pilot project which started with 13 districts in 1996, the ministry scaled up 66 districts from 2002, and the current programme which goes live in 2012, will reach a minimum of 160 districts due to its success, making it national in scope. The trade minister added that such a spread in implementing the programme, also indicated that economic activities were going on in many and different areas in the economy. The programme is part of the second Private Sector Development Project. The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has made available US$39 million to kick-start the US$170million, eight-year programme which is expected to transform the rural economies by creating jobs and halting the rural-urban migration. The partner sponsor, African Development Bank (AfDB) has also completed its mission and is expected to approve a financing package in the first quarter of next year. Under the REP, the ministry would also set up Rural Technology Facilities (RTFs) meant for the manufacture and fabrication of simple tools and machine parts, would be established across the programme area to complement the efforts of the SMEs that would spring up. Already, such facilities have become operational in six additional Rural Technology Facilities (RTFs) in 2011 in Goaso, Bechem, Bole, Jomoro, Mankessim and Adidome, bringing the total number to 18. It is expected that additional RTFs will be established in Somanya, Damongo and the Awutu-Senya in 2012. According to Ms Tetteh, the ultimate target is to have one RTF per every five districts. In anticipation of a busy year, the 2012 Budget allocated about GH¢157.4 million to the Trade Ministry; GH¢10.68million coming from the government, GH¢110 million from donor sources and GH¢23.73 million coming from internally generated sources. With the REP come Business Advisory Services in all the participating districts. It will serve as a resource centre to support the SMEs and artisans with business knowledge, proper book keeping and management practices. The REP in a district will be responsible basically for training master craftsmen who will in turn train apprentices after which the trainees who pass out would receive start up kits. The programme also makes available financing using the Rural and Community banks to enable the artisans to pass set up. The trade and industry minister believes that many of the small and simple equipment imported could be manufactured in Ghana and the RTF would serve as resource centres for these machines to be manufactured locally, to provide value addition to agricultural products. They have also become resource centres where we can develop industrial areas. This was the case in Mankessim, where a lot of the artisans on their own volition relocated near the RTF to have an all round services in the area, she said, adding that this is going to be the vehicle through which we will reach out to many districts and create SMEs to bolster the local economies. She said the amended Export Development and Investment Fund EDIF Act had made more resources available for agricultural and agro-processing activities to give real meaning to entrepreneurial activities at the district level. However, the EDIF facility would not be for micro and small businesses, but medium scale enterprises. “In the coming year, we are going to see an expansion in agre-business for the local economy as well as for export as a result of the EDIF Amendment Act”, Ms Tetteh stressed, as the amended Act now has a wider coverage and ropes in agricultural and agro processing, not necessarily for exports but also for the domestic market. The Ministry of Trade and Industry and its agencies have quarterly review meetings with which they track activities and progress made, as well as how improvements and adjustments could be done. It all starts with a directors’ meeting at the beginning of the year, during which head of departments and directors present their programmes for the years and how they intend to prosecute them, “I think this helps us to stay on track and has also helped us to develop the initiatives we've been able to put in place”, she said.