FG And NEIP Launches Ghana Online Mall
In spite of Ghana government’s efforts to equip startups and entrepreneurs with finance and business advisory services, the major challenge that is a crippling force to these businesses is access to ready markets.
In a bid to nullify this problem, the Ministry of Business Development alongside the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Plan (NEIP), has unveiled the Ghana Online Mall to expose early-stage businesses and startup entrepreneurs to finance access and international markets.
Mohammed Awal, the Minister for Business Development, has charged entrepreneurs to make it a salient point to include value-addition as well as time management on their products and services.
According to him, these businesses are competing with the global market, and must as such add value to their products or risk getting swept under the enterprise carpet. This is why efforts were concerted to launch the platform, as the government now expects businesses to be time cautious and meet deadlines because the recently launched is a global environment.
The Ghana Online Mall is the third of four online platforms introduced by NEIP for bolstering entrepreneurs and startups in Ghana. This e-platform, under government funding, will enable businesses upload certified products or services, availing them prospective customers at zero costs.
In a keynote address rendered on behalf of Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia, the Minister for Employment and Labor Relations, Ignatius Baffour Awuah disclosed that the electronic platform would make the businesses freelancers visible and gettable on a global landscape.
According to him, the online mall will act as a pool of service providers from a diversity of backgrounds, and provide an avenue for job creation especially for Ghanaian students, the unemployed graduates, busy mothers, artisans and everyone else who offers one form of service or the other from the comfort of their homes.
Awuah said that the authorities anticipate the creation of no less than 8,000 jobs from the initiative, within the first twelve months of its launch.
CEO of NEIP, John Kumah has also mentioned that business development hubs and working spaces are at the core of the government’s quest to get many Ghanaians into entrepreneurship.
