Graphic Launches FREE paper

Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL) on Wednesday launched a new publication, a purely advertising paper, Graphic Advertiser.The paper, which would be distributed free-of-charge at designated points in various cities and district capitals, is aimed at responding to the specific advertising needs of a particular niche of the market.

At the launching ceremony in Accra yesterday, the Managing Director of GCGL, Mr Berifi Apenteng, said the publication was for advertisers like small shops, supermarkets, fast food joints, second-hand car dealers, spare parts shops and small-time service providers, catering for their local community and who could not afford to advertise on a national scale.

He added that it was also targetted at the first-time advertiser who had never tasted the benefits of advertising and expected that he would use the Graphic Advertiser to get the benefits that advertising did bring to one's business, before moving into the arena of national media advertising.

According to the managing director, for a start, the paper will be circulated in Accra, Tema and Kumasi and would cater for their specific needs, and added that very soon it would be moved into other regional and district centres. He said that the company was taking advantage of the favourable business environment in the country as a springboard for developing new products and services that met the varied needs of the customer.

He disclosed that the company would soon launch a weekly newspaper to cater for the needs of some sections of the Ghanaian society, both at home and abroad.Mr Apenteng also announced that the company was developing an effective book publishing within the Graphic Packaging Limited, a subsidiary of the GCGL, to take advantage of the revised Textbook Development Policy under the Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE) programme.

The Board Chairman of GCGL, Prof K. Gyekye, said the publication of the Graphic Advertiser, had been in fulfilment of a vision in the five-year strategic plan that had been put forward by the management team of the company and been approved by the board.

?I would like to congratulate the management of the GCGL on their vision, creativity, originality, inventiveness and imagination,?? he said.He added that the Graphic Advertiser offered small and medium enterprises the opportunity to promote themselves by informing people of their products in order to expand their businesses, employ more people and increase their profit margins.

Prof. Gyekye said the move was in line with government's policy of Golden Age of Business to make the private sector the engine of growth and enhance socio-economic development of the nation.Launching the paper, the Chief Executive of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre, Mr Kwesi Abeasi, said most of the small and medium scale enterprises in the country had good quality products and services which people needed urgently.

He, however, added that due to ignorance of the availability of these products and services , people tended to import such products.