The Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) will continue to influence government policies to impact positively on small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs). In this direction, the association will conduct a comprehensive survey of the SMEs and hold a major conference for all stakeholders. The President of the association, Mr Tony Oteng-Gyasi, has told the Daily Graphic that the conference would help stakeholders to determine the best support and interventions to help the sector grow. The association's concentration on the sector is to ensure that the sector is well nurtured so as to play its lead role in the development of the country's economic agenda. He said the recent energy crisis had the greatest negative impact on the operations of the SME sector as against the bigger and multinational institutions. Although absolute figures are yet to emerge, the Daily Graphic said it has gathered that the big manufacturing companies, particularly the multinationals, had a good year with some impressive performances, despite the prolonged energy crisis that hit the country. These companies include PZ Cussons, Unilever and Ghacem. The cement manufacturer is said to have recorded an all-time high performance since its operations in Ghana. Mr Oteng-Gyasi, in a reaction, said such good performances were signs of a growing and deepening economy. "This is a sign of a growing economy, but it should not make us complacent. It means that without the energy crisis, things could have been better," he said. However, the SMEs recorded mixed performances mainly due to the energy crisis. According to an industrial survey by the Ghana Statistical Service about four years ago, SMEs account for over 80 percent of the country's manufacturing sector. The sector is also a major employer in the economy, but faces a lot of challenges, including inadequate access to credit and capital for expansion. Mr Oteng-Gyasi said the AGI had also done an appraisal of the country's taxation laws and compiled all of them into a book to be launched this year. The survey and appraisal of the tax system, the president said, revealed a pressing need for tax reforms in the country, saying the taxation laws must either be reviewed, enforced more vigorously or repealed. The association wants the tax system to be simpler, less cumbersome and easier to understand so as to enhance tax compliance. "This will also enhance the government's own revenue generation as it will be simple and bolster compliance," Mr Oteng-Gyasi said. To that end, the association would hold a series of tax seminars and workshops with stakeholders and revenue agencies with local and foreign tax experts as resource persons. Reacting to news that Burkina Faso was holding negotiations to supply meat to Ghana, the AGI president said the government and the authorities should ensure that the Burkinabes reciprocally opened up their market to Ghanaian goods. He said currently Burkina Faso was using a lot of tariff barriers to ward off exports from Ghana, but those products from other French-speaking West African countries had easier entry. "We should use this as a dialogue procedure to get the Burkinabe government to make some concessions or a mutual scrapping of duties on the cross-border goods," he stated. Mr Oteng-Gyasi suggested that the two countries should form a common Customs Union and agree on opening each other's borders for increased trade between the two. "These are opportunities that we shouldn't look at in isolation. We should use it as stepping stone to deepen the relations between Ghana and Burkina Faso. Recently, a Burkinabe delegation from the meat sector visited the country to explore ways of becoming a major meat exporter to Ghana, which currently sources virtually all its meat requirements from Europe and the United States. Source: Daily Graphic