7 factories under 1D1F get financial backing

The National Coordinator of the One District One Factory programme, Gifty Ohene-Konadu, says government has secured financial backing for seven factories under the initiative.

Last year, the Akufo-Addo-led government indicated that it was in the process of putting in place the necessary financial arrangement for the construction of 51 factories under the programme.

Responding to questions from the media on the said target, Madam Ohene-Konadu disclosed that government was awaiting the responses of the various financial institutions that had been approached to fund the programme.

She said this on the sidelines of a business seminar held under the theme ‘Financing the 1D1F Policy: the role of government, participating financial institutions and entrepreneurs,’ at the 22nd International Trade Fair in Accra.

Madam Ohene-Konadu hinted that in fulfillment of its part of the arrangement, government had identified and entered into negotiations with the appropriate financial partners.

“We have limits. We cannot force anything on the banks because they have their own processes and as far as we are concerned, we achieved our target because we sent about 70 proposals last year,” she emphasized.

The National 1D1F Coordinator further revealed that government had followed up with more proposals for other factories in addition to the ones sent earlier.

She indicated that out of the proposals sent to the banks, the 1D1F secretariat had secured full financial cover for seven of them.

“I can talk about seven now. We have Ekumfi, Atebubu-Amanteng, Begoro and others,” she said.

She commended banks approached by government for showing interest in the realization of the life changing initiative.

In a presentation on ‘Doing business in Ghana, opportunities, experiences and challenges,’ the Chief Executive of the Association of Ghana Industries, Seth Twum-Akwaboah, noted the need for a linkage between agriculture and industry.

“It is critical that the industries that for the industries to be set up, they must have the commercial farming that would produce the products that would fit the factories,” he emphasized.

He believed this would go a long to avert the situation where there would be unavailability of raw materials in factories that would be set up.

He added that this would also attract more opportunities.

Mr Twum-Akwaboah pointed out that there are many business opportunities in the country and urged industrialist to take advantage of it.