Her Excellency Dr. Renate Schimkoreit, the German Ambassador to Ghana, has paid a working visit to the Rubber Outgrower Plantation Project of the Ghana Rubber Estates Company Limited, GREL. The Rubber Outgrower Unit is the Extension Services wing of the Ghana Rubber Estates Limited (GREL). The unit is responsible for the implementation and management of various schemes under the Rubber Outgrower Plantations Project (ROPP). The schemes give opportunities to individual farmers to plant and own rubber plantation with assistance in the form of loans from some development partners. GREL provides technical support in the form of Extension Service and some inputs. The phase 1 of the project commenced in 1995 with Four hundred (400) Outgrowers assisted to plant 1200.28 hectares of rubber. Financing was provided by Agence Française de Developpement (AFD), IDA/World Bank and Government of Ghana with an amount of 1.643 million Euros. In 2006, the German Government through their development bank KFW, AFD and the Ghana Government co-financed the Phase three III of the Outgrower Plantation Project to the tune of €19.9 million. This Phase assisted 1,800 farmers to plant 7,885 hectares of Rubber which was far above the 7,000 initial projections, in the Western and Central Regions of Ghana. It is worth mentioning that since the commencement of the project in 1995, Four (4) Phases have been implemented with 5,550 farmers assisted to plant 22,640 Hectares of rubber. Dr. Renate Schimkoreit, during a tour of the project site also held a town hall meeting with the farmers to find the progress of work. Most of the Phase III farmers whose plantations are in the production stage underscored the benefits of the scheme to the entourage. Her Excellency was thrilled and pleased that the farmers are reaping the benefits for which the project was co-financed by her Government. She stated that “though I have read on rubber trees, today is my first time of having physical contact with a Rubber Tree and, I am so happy that my country, Germany is part of the success story being told”. The Project Director Mr. Emmanuel Akwasi Owusu on behalf of the Managing Director of GREL, Mr. Lionel Barres thanked Her Excellency Dr. Renate and her team for taking time off their busy schedule to visit the Project.