Right Consults, an electronic security firm won the ultimate award – the Star Award of the Year, at the maiden Invest In Africa (IIA) SME Excellence Awards held at the Labadi Beach Hotel in Accra.

Country Manager of Invest In Africa, Clarence Nartey, challenged SME’s to build local businesses for global markets.

He revealed his outfit will be investing heavily in the capacity building of SMEs in the country. 

According to Mr Nartey, there are ongoing partnerships with government, through the Ministry of Business Development to grow about 20 indigenous companies into multinationals capable of competing globally within the next four years.

According to him, IIA Ghana is aimed at “coordinating private sector efforts to build local content and develop the needed capacity and skills for sustained growth and jobs creation, it has grown to become a relevant local content player with a vibrant home-grown business ecosystem”

Country Manager of the African Development Bank, Dr Yero Baldeh urge the government to prioritize some key areas to enable local and upcoming entrepreneurs to expand their tentacles. 

Dr Baldeh said an enhanced access to finance, reinforced business support, provision of support for entrepreneurship development as well as the promotion of an enabling environment will help entrepreneurs to compete favourably.

Speaking on the importance of the Excellence Awards, Dr Yero Baldeh was hopeful the ceremony will “empower SMEs to find new innovative ways of resolving challenges that confront them and enable them to seize opportunities presented by regional and international markets.”

Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Carlos Ahenkorah, also reiterated government’s resolve to embolden the private sector in fulfilment of its industrialization agenda. 

Mr Ahenkorah revealed that efforts are being made to link young entrepreneurs to the relevant business market through the establishment of incubators across all University campuses in the country.

The Invest in Africa (IIA) SME Excellence Awards have been developed to honour local businesses who, through the ongoing flagship business linkage and skills development programme of the IIA, have put up enviable potential to scale up and participate in supply chains of larger organisations both in Ghana and abroad.

Other winners were Stredstar Engineering and Construction LTD  winning Sustainable Business of the Year category, Joissam Ghana Ltd taking home the Scale-up Business of the Year award, AB Engineering winning the Business Transformation Award.

The rest are Asheba Africa grabbing the Business Innovation Award and Female Entrepreneur Award, Sustainable Agro LTD for the Business Linkage Award, Agri Access Ghana LTD for Award Merit Award among others