The Board of the Export Trade, Agricultural & Industrial Development Fund (EDAIF) continues to scale up its support to Ghanaian businesses. The Board in December 2015 approved GHS50 million to set up the EDAIF Equity Fund that will target investments into SMEs engaged in agro-processing, export trade and industrial development in line with the mandate of EDAIF.
Also, over the period from August to December 2015, the EDAIF Board approved financing facilities amounting to GHS52.3 million to beneficiaries in the public and private sectors of the Ghanaian economy. The EDAIF Equity Fund will, over the next five years, support businesses that require long-term investments.
The fund will provide long-term catalytic capital with technical support where appropriate. It will also provide investments to start-ups, early stage companies and enterprises where short-term debt financing is inappropriate.
Equity financing in agro-processing will be extended to enterprises in crops and vegetable; fruits and juices; meat and dairy; and, edible oils. In industrial development, enterprises engaged in packaging materials; apparels; woodworks and handicrafts; paper and pulp; and, aluminium and metals will qualify for financing.
EDAIF is operating the Equity Fund with technical support from Venture Capital Trust Fund and through a Fund Manager, Oasis Capital Ghana Ltd, which will receive proposals from prospective applicants.
The approvals of over GHS52.3 million were made up of GHS20.3 million as Interest Free Repayable funds and GHS13.2 million as credit extended towards the purchase of equipment, tools and accessories for agro-processing; and GHS5.7 in grants towards rice, cashew and poultry production.
The remaining GHS13.1 million covered support for the EDAIF-sponsored Cassava and Mango projects that received GHS 8.6 million and GHS 4.5 million respectively. The support for cassava was for the implementation of Phase 1 of the Cassava Integrated Enterprise Development Project covering the Northern, Brong Ahafo and Ashanti regions.
Financial support was approved to establish three processing factories and over 1000 beneficiaries received financial support to cultivate nearly 4,000 acres of cassava to feed the factories. Approvals for the Mango project covered maintenance of existing farms of over 5,000 acres and the cultivation of additional 2,800 acres across the country. . .
The Board and Management of EDAIF wish to encourage small-holder Ghanaian cooperatives, associations and businesses to contact the organization for further information.
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