Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC), Yofi Grant, has urged players in the textiles and garments industry to partner and take advantage of the huge potential in the exports of textiles and garments.
According to Mr Grant, the US and the European Union (EU) alone import approximately $100 billion worth of textiles and garments annually, hence it was prudent for Ghana to take advantage of it.
He made the assertion on Wednesday, November 4, when the GIPC organised the first ever Garments & Textiles Investment Meeting in Accra, in partnership with the Cotton Development Authority and the Association of Ghana Apparel Manufacturers.
The meeting, on the theme:The Future of Garments & Textiles in Ghana’s Industrialisation Drive, is to enable stakeholders deliberate on the challenges and hindrances towards the growth of the Ghana textiles and garments industry and devise a structured approach to enter the global market.
Speaking further, Mr Grant noted that his outfit together with the textiles and garments Industry will work hard to make Ghanaian textiles and garments more attractive to the global market.
“Although many challenges have hit the textiles and garments industry and contributed to it experiencing a drastic decline in production and exports, GIPC will work hand in hand with manufacturers to produce textiles and garments that are more appealing to the global market,” he said.
“I believe that we do have an opportunity to add value to textiles and garments produced for export revenues and can create significant wealth through it because Ghana has a potential to become a major exporter of garments and textiles,” he added.
The decline in production as well as exports have been as a result of a surge in Chinese imports and influence on Ghanaian markets with lower costing products, the smuggling of foreign textiles into the country especially from China and Vietnam as well as the lack of raw materials by local manufacturers for production, leading to low demand for domestic textiles.
