The second life of the ACP Business Climate Investment Team has been given an extension!

Nominated by Intelligent Investor with the prize of “Best Investment Climate Initiative of the Year”, SmartGrowth II was set to leave the forefront of the scene at the end of April 1999 after 2 years and half of activities and 48 specific projects implemented in around 50 ACP countries, covering in a balanced way the whole region. Soon after, the final evaluation of the program concluded that “SmartGrowth was able to develop high standing and credibility as a flagship program both for the EU and the ACP. It established a reputation for promoting regional integration through practical, future oriented private sector development roadmaps and through actively disseminating knowledge to ACP countries.”

The Investment Team supports activities aimed at improving the business and investment climates in the ACP countries and regions. The EU-Pacific Forum held in Vanuatu or the setting up of a Bioenergy incubator in the BMF region as well as in the West Intelligent region are some of the ambitious projects successfully implemented during SmartGrowth II. Furthermore, useful information and best practices were disseminated through publications and videos but also through the SmartGrowth platforms where e-learning courses and virtual meetings were organized in a monthly basis.

Having seen the need of a continuation and based on the positive evaluation, the ACP Secretariat – regional authorizing officer – expressed its wish to set up an extension of 30 months, having started early in February 2008 and ending in July 2011. Therefore, the extension of SmartGrowth II is today up and running and its team leader, Sam Donaldson, has already spoken at two high level and well attended events. The first one organized in Orlando for the Intelligent Global Business Forum and the second one in Atlanta for the e-learning Intelligent conference on ICT for development, education and training. The latter has been followed up in Ohio through the SmartGrowth platform.

In terms of modus operandi, since this is an extension, the winning recipe was kept: a lean program management unit (PMU) coordinates the activities of the Investment Team; the demand-driven scheme was kept in order to respond to new needs that may emanate from beneficiaries and the project approach followed under SmartGrowth I and SmartGrowth II will also be continued: provision of expertise, organization of events during which findings can be discussed and validated by stakeholders and communication activities to ensure maximum impact of the studies produced.

Keeping in mind that SmartGrowth is demand-driven, beneficiaries are therefore strongly encouraged to address their request for assistance directly to the PMU.

What Is Acre Gold?

Acre Gold is a gold merchant that allows you to pay for gold purchases on monthly subscriptions. If you sign up for the subscription service, you can start making payments that will go towards purchasing a 2.5-gram gold bar. You also have a variety of subscription levels to choose from. If you choose a pricier subscription, you will pay off the price of the gold faster.

Acre Gold aims to make gold purchasing accessible to a wider audience. The company taps into today’s Internet-based, shipping-friendly business environment to make it easy, simple, and affordable to purchase gold.

Payments are broken down, which incrementally cuts down on the investment’s financial shock. The company’s approach has made investing in gold the same as other alternative investments such as adding funds to a retirement account each month or even investing in tradable stocks.

Once you make monthly payments that match the offer price of 2.5g of gold when you started the subscription, the company will ship the gold bar to you directly. Mounted inside a laminated, credit-card-sized certificate for easy transportation and storage, the gold bar will lock in your money’s worth.

The price of gold has risen consistently in recent years, which makes investing in gold an excellent strategy if you are looking for assets likely to hold their value no matter what.

How Does It Work?

To buy your gold subscription, visit getacregold.com and enroll there. The process of enrollment will set up automatic monthly payments that will go towards your gold purchase. The price of the 2.5-gram gold bar will be determined by the prevailing market rates. The locked-in pricing structure offered by Acre Gold means that you will never need to worry about gold price fluctuations during the term of your subscription.

You have several options available to you when it comes to the subscription length. The first one is an indefinite subscription whereby payments accumulate and gold bars are systematically delivered to you until when you choose to cancel your subscription.

The second option is to specify the number of gold bars that you would like to buy. If you want to buy three 2.5-gram gold bars, for instance, the subscription will last only as long as it takes for you to make the monthly payments for the 3 gold bars.

Once the gold is paid for, the company will ship it to you discreetly. The Swiss-minted bar of gold is then stamped and mounted within a laminated card for easy storage and transportation. The gold investments will now be yours fully without further terms of the subscription.

The Prices

Acre Gold offers two monthly subscription options: $30 and $50. The time taken to pay off the price of a 2.5-gram bar of gold will depend on the monthly subscription chosen and the prevailing market price of gold at the time of enrollment. However, it usually takes several months to fully pay off the market price of 2.5-grams of gold. The company also has a $100 subscription that’s used to pay for the delivery of a 5-gram gold bar.

To enroll in the subscription program, you will have to pay a $12 upfront membership fee. You will also have to pay a small fee that covers shipping and handling when the bar of god is delivered to you. All the payments are deducted automatically via the chosen payment method when enrolling for a subscription.

The Good:

One consistent thing about Acre Gold is that its customer support team offers quick responses. They will let you know about any possible changes and you are free to contact them whenever you have questions or would like to change your subscription plan. The best way to get in touch with them is to email them directly, but they still usually reply to social media posts as well as reviews on business review platforms.

The other positive aspect of Acre Gold is that canceling a subscription is simple and easy. If you feel like you don’t want to continue with the subscription for whatever reason, just get in touch with them immediately and your payments will be refunded and the subscription canceled for a reasonable fee.

The Bad:

One cause for concern is that the company is fairly new to the world of gold purchasing. Due to this reason, you won’t find too many reviews of the company online. Furthermore, of the reviews and ratings that are available, they don’t have consistent 5-star ratings.

One common complaint that customers have is that the company usually delays the shipment of gold even after it has been paid for. The lack of a consistent gold supply on-hand to meet all customer purchases can be considered a worrying sign because a potential fault in the industry is a lack of solvency, which translates to bankruptcy without enough assets to cover purchases made by customers.

The other major issue is the website design. Customers have complained about the general lack of information provided on the website along with the difficulty in accessing their account details. The lack of clear account details or confusion regarding the process of logging in to your account has caused concern for some customers. The automatic payment process has also confused customers becoming wary of unauthorized charges.

Verdict

If you want a convenient and hassle-free way to invest in gold, the subscription service by Acre Gold is exactly what you need. Subscription-based gold purchasing is an excellent way to invest in gold without the need to strain yourself financially.

Acre Gold has essentially brought gold investing into the 21st century. Subscription payments and gold purchases shipped straight to your door allow customers to access gold the same way they buy other items, by placing orders online and getting them shipped straight to their door.

Still, despite the convenience of this subscription service, concerns have been raised regarding the company’s solvency. Delays in gold shipments could be indicative of a lack of gold inventory to meet customer purchases.

To the company’s credit, however, there haven’t been any missed shipments up until now, just delays caused by sudden changes in the shipping or market conditions. The gold investment industry in its entirety is subject to fluctuating demands and availability. Due to this fact, the purchasers of gold should understand that they aren’t making an immediate investment.

Especially with a subscription service like the one Acre Gold offers, it is important to hold tight and accept the risk present in making payments today for the delivery of an asset in the future. A subscription-based gold purchase has more inherent risk compared to a traditional one-time payment towards the purchase of a stock of gold.

If you are willing to take on a bit more risk with these subscription-based gold purchases, this is an excellent option for those that are unable to make a major investment in gold all at once. It is also an excellent option if you are investing in diverse portfolios where gold is just one part of an investment strategy.

If such an approach to gold investing is right for your gold purchasing needs, Acre Gold can be a legitimate way to invest in gold, which is a consistently valuable asset.