7/3/00 (BEMc)
AMEX International

Interview with Matthew Armah (MA),
Deputy Chief of Party, Finance/Business Management
Phone:  233-21-765231 or 7647607 or 7010738
FAX:  233-21-7778747
Email:  mamah@ighmail.com
P.O. Box 5196
Accra-North, Ghana

Amex is an international consulting firm headquartered in Washington, DC with projects in Africa and other countries including former USSR.  According to  MA:  "In the developing world you go where the contracts take you."  

Matthew Armah:  formerly with the African Development Bank; agroeconomist, economic development; management consultant for wood and garment industries.

This project in Ghana:
USAID/Ghana Trade & Investment Reform Program
Increased Private Enterprise Performance (PEP) Component Project
Contract runs from 1998-2002.

Focus on export promotion of products in three sectors:  agribusiness, wood industry, textiles and clothing.
--clients are small to medium businesses
--target market for clothing/textiles is Afrocentric market in U.S./African Diaspora

Amex arranges for their client businesses to meet buyers in U.S. etc.  Take designs, samples abroad to showcase them to potential buyers.  Method is one-on-one Amex to business.  (Not, e.g., working with an organization like GAWE per se.)

Provides business development services such as product design, meeting production deadlines and specifications, standardization of clothes sizing, warehousing the products in U.S., handling commissions, etc.  "We spend a lot of time preparing people to go to the business markets/buyers."   Selected 5 local clothing designers and created a catalog for them to advertise their products.  A month ago, one of the clients got an order from Essence Magazine E-Style (catalog merchandise) for 300 pieces.  Amex encourages their clients to work together (i.e., if it was necessary to do so to fill that order.)

USAID funding with cost-sharing provided by collect user fees from business clients.

Type of clients:  small to medium businesses
Small to medium size businesses that have about 20 machines.  Average 5-10 machines.  Largest client has about 50 machines.
Sales:  Thousands (cedis) to 15 million cedis (@$3,000)

First stage was preparing the business clients to go to the trade shows.  Now, Amex gives contacts and expects the businesses to follow up.

--Wood sector - Portal Limited (WAEN member) is an Amex client.   Amex spends a lot of time finding funding for their clients.  According to MA:  "We have some clients with the banks knocking at their door."  But this is not the usual case; sometimes those sought after businesses do not want bank loans (paying back with the high interest, bureaucracy, etc.)

Amex helps clients prepare Business Plans.  "Business Plan is about assumptions.  The business owner's job is to convince the bank his assumptions will come true."  Amex tries to bring to negotiation with the banks an "honest perspective" of what is commercially feasible.  "The trick is to get the timing between the clutch and the accelerator right."

Amex does outreach efforts to attract clients, conducts business development seminars.

Amex collaborates with local business assn/business development organizations: e.g:
--current contract with WAEN/Tina Ababio to do a market study of tariff structure relative to demand for furniture; security of assets.
--use Empretec/Enterprise Africa to provide training programs/services to Amex clients.

Business/Policy Environment

--Government Sector
Production capacity inadequate - needs 'massive' investment.
--Tourism
	More people are coming into Ghana.  However, according to MA:  Tourists don't carry a lot of cash.  They carry credit cards.  Currently, Ghana's financial system us not set up to handle credit purchases on a wide scale, esp. for the small types of businesses and artisans that sell to tourists.  Believes crafts prices (e.g. at Arts Council/market in Accra) are low because more artisans have gotten into this market, and that the increase in sellers has brought increased competition for tourist money, which lowered the prices.

--Miscellaneous:  Service Sector as Engine of Economic Growth
MA believes that a dynamic services product (e.g. data processing) that could market itself worldwide/internationally and remain competitive and in demand-would be just as effective as a manufacturing sector in stimulating sustainable economic growth in... Ghana or elsewhere.   It would have to have the 'competitive advantage'[cf. author Michael Porter et al.]  E.g. Ashanti Goldfield Corporation could get into gold processing if it invested the massive amounts required for processing equipment, then acquiring global markets.

NOTE:  Amex brochures about company and Ghana project given to BEMc.