Akosombo Textiles restored to its glorious days – Alan

The Minister for Trade & Industry, Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen, says the serious operational challenges that were confronting the Akosombo Textiles Limited (ATL) which led to its near collapse have been addressed with the company no longer facing the risk of total collapse.

“The Government under the leadership of His Excellency, the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has taken concrete actions to restore Akosombo Textiles Limited to its glorious days as a veritable source of formal employment and income generation for the people in the Asuogyaman and surrounding communities”, he noted.

Briefing Members of Parliament (MP) on the floor of the House about the state of the company, Wednesday, June 19, 2019, the Minister for Trade & Industry said quite a number of measures including specific incentives and policy measures have been introduced by the government to ensure the sustenance of the operations of ATL after resuscitating it from the quagmire it was going through.

The company, he said, is currently benefiting from a three-year exemption on VAT (Zero-rated); Import Duty Waiver and concessions on raw materials imports and the importation of machinery and equipment; as well as deferred VAT payment on imports to improve the cash flow situation of local textile manufacturing companies.

Among the policy measures approved by Cabinet to support ATL and other textile companies include the introduction of Tax Stamps for locally manufactured and imported textiles to address the problem of pirated and smuggled imported textiles products; designation of Tema Port as the Single-Entry Corridor for imported textiles products; the implementation of a Textile Import Management System to improve inter-agency coordination of the textiles trade, including the vetting of designs and logos; and the execution of a special market surveillance operation supervised by the Textile Task Force to monitor importers and assess the levels of compliance with the new policy measures.

All these measures were introduced following the approval of a transitional arrangement by Cabinet where a comprehensive stimulus package for ATL that included the initial injection of GH?17million into the company’s operations at a subsidized interest rate by the Prudential Bank Limited.

Besides the intervention measures introduced by the government to ensure the sustainability of the company, Mr. Alan Kyerematen said a new management team put together by the company is also working towards increasing production from the current level of two million yards of fabric per year to five million yards, equivalent to 50% of the factory’s current production capacity.

Additional Engineering and Sales staff have also been recruited to take up Senior Management and Supervisory roles, the Trades Minister further revealed, stressing that “This has resulted in the revamping of the textiles design and production operations as well as the marketing portfolio of the company”.

Moreover, management of ATL is aggressively pursuing an international sales drive and has since established relations with trading companies in Nigeria, Benin, Brussels, USA and the United Kingdom, to step up its export sales.

“It is envisaged that this will contribute significantly towards the promotion of Made-In. Ghana textiles and clothing”, he added.

Background

Akosombo Textiles Limited (ATL) was established in 1967 as part of the Cha Textiles Group of Companies. From an initial workforce of around 500, ATL employed 1,650 people at the peak of the company’s operations in the 1980’s. ATL currently employs 780 people. The company has spinning, weaving, dyeing, printing and finishing capacity, all on one site. It is the single largest vertically integrated textile factory in Ghana that uses cotton from the northern part of Ghana to produce yarn, grey baft fabric and mercerized calico which is processed, dyed, printed and finished into prints for the local and export markets.

ATL currently produces four main brands of fabric, namely ATL, ABC, Treasure and Inspiration.