A&T Lends Hand to Enterprise Community
January 10, 1996
Greensboro, NC: Extending trade to foreign markets can help revitalize struggling local economies, says Dr. William Amponsah, interim coordinator of North Carolina A&T State University's International Trade Center of Excellence. Recently, Amponsah and a group of NC A&T representatives visited Halifax County, NC, to organize a forum on rural economic development.
Halifax County is a federally designated enterprise community and serves as a pilot
project site for a minority community business development partnership coordinated by
A&T.
The A&T partnership coordinates programs designed to stimulate the establishment of
small businesses in traditionally agricultural or other natural resource dependent
communities, and to assist them in diversifying to non-resource based businesses with
domestic and international markets.
Specific activities entailed in the project include technical assistance programs on how
to organize and operate effective business organizations, and identification of available
resources at the federal and/or state level. The project's focal goal is the
revitalization of rural communities.
"The partnership strives to empower rural communities by creating jobs, providing
access to capital investment, enhancing individual incomes, and contributing to North
Carolina's balance of payments," said Amponsah.
Among the A&T contingent were Amponsah; Dr. Earnestine Psalmonds, vice chancellor for
research; Dr. Daniel D. Godfrey, dean of the School of Agriculture; and Dr. Alton
Thompson, chairperson of the Department of Agricultural Education, Economics and Rural
Sociology.
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For more information, please contact Dr. William Amponsah of the NC A&T School of
Agriculture, (336) 334-7056.