By Anthony Adongo Apubeo
Bolgatanga, March 8, GNA – The second edition of ‘BolgaWeDey’, an exhibition that attracts local businesses and micro enterprises has been held in Bolgatanga, the Upper East Regional capital.
Organised by Offshore Events, an event planning and advertising company and a subsidiary of the Youth Network for Societal Transformation, a Non-Governmental Organisation, the ‘BolgaWeDey’ exhibition fair seeks to present local micro and small enterprises with the opportunity to showcase their products and network for market linkages.
Dealers in various products including baskets, leather works, traditional food, local organic food products, traditional and Ghanaian wear such as smock among others converged at the GHANASS hotel to showcase their products.
The event was also part of efforts to mark the Ghana Month which calls on all Ghanaians to patronise made in Ghana products to help boost local businesses and grow the economy.
Mr Christopher Kevin Asima, the Executive Director, Offshore Events, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, noted that the ‘BolgaWeDey’ exhibition fair which was free was part of a bigger agenda to organise a festival in the coming year.
He said the idea was to give opportunity to people from the region who were producing local products using the local raw materials available in the region to exhibit their products and build linkages to grow their businesses.
“It is open to any product especially those who are producing things in the Upper East Region, that is, the production must be done here in the region but if your production is not done here but then the raw materials for whatever you are producing, hail from Upper East Region, you are allowed to exhibit,” he said.
Mr Asima explained that as part of the fair, the Offshore Event was targeting at identifying challenges and weaknesses including packaging, marketing and advertisement among other businesses and assist them to address them for improved patronage.
“Last year, we spoke to a number of them and connected them to people that could get companies to brand their products and we have achieved that because when you look at these products, you will see that the packaging has improved,” he said.
Going forward, he said, businesses would be supported to digitise their products especially with the use of social media to ensure that their products could sell on the international market and easily be accessed, adding “this will help get companies that can support them to expand their businesses”.
Mr Rex Asanga, the Chief Executive for the Bolgatanga Municipal Assembly, lauded the organisers of the exhibition and said it would help give exposure to the numerous potentials of the region to the international community.
He said the Assembly was working to create enabling environment for local businesses to thrive so as to contribute to the growth of the local economy and urged the business owners to take advantage of such opportunities to increase sales.
Mr Matthew Naamlebna Akayeti, the Founder of Hights Enterprise, who uses groundnuts, sesame, baobab seeds among others to produce oil, noted that some of the major challenges facing local small businesses were the issue of capital to expand and the bureaucratic nature of acquiring and renewing licenses from the Ghana Standards Authority and the Food and Drugs Authority.
He therefore called for support to help expand their businesses as well as appealed to the institutions to make acquiring of licenses flexible to help businesses to grow.
GNA