Private businesses in the country need to take advantage of the investment potential that exists within the West Africa sub-region, Minister of Trade and Industry, Hanna Tetteh, has said. “Private businesses in the country should focus on doing business in other West African countries. SMEs should aim to compete in other countries within the sub-region.” Ms. Tetteh was speaking at the launch of the second phase of the Business Development Services (BDS) Fund in Accra. She indicated that her office has received enquiries from trade ministries within the sub-region about the possibility of local companies training SMEs in other West African countries. “This presents an opportunity for SMEs to take advantage of various interventions government has put in place to grow their businesses and take advantage of the opportunities that exist in the sub-region,” Ms. Tetteh said. The second phase of the Business Development Services (BDS) Fund is to provide support to MSMEs in the country. US$2.8million is available for the second phase, with US$1.5million and US$1.3million earmarked for the MSMEs and renewable energy companies respectively. It focuses on building the capacity of local business support organisations and business member-organisations to undertake research and grant application processing. She urged the fund managers to spread fund activities to the regions and districts to support local businesses there. The BDS fund is a matching-grant scheme set up under the Ministry of Trade and Industries and the Ministry of Energy to support the development of a marketplace for business development services for MSMEs in the country. It is one of the components of the MSME project established in 2007 with the support of the World Bank to provide finance and technical assistance to MSMEs. The second phase of the BDS fund ends in October 2012.