Ghana's textiles and garments industry to be attractive global market – GIPC

Yofi Grant, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC), says the Centre together with the Textiles and Garments Industry are working hard to be more attractive the global markets.

He said even though many challenges had hit the industry and contributed to it experiencing a drastic decline in production and export, however, the GIPC with its stakeholders were bent on adding value to the textiles and garments produced to make it more appealing to the global market.

The decline had been as a result of a surge in Chinese imports, Chinese influence on Ghanaian markets with lower costing products leading to low demand of domestic textiles, smuggling of foreign textiles into the country especially from China and Vietnam, and lack of raw materials among others, he said.

Mr Grant made the statement on Wednesday when the GIPC organised a “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”, was to enable stakeholders to 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.

He said the name Ghana was becoming a common space in the global economy from textiles to soccer, architecture, and music, among others.

“We do have an opportunity to add value to all these things for export revenues and we can create significant wealth through that because Ghana has a potential to become a major exporter of garments and textiles,” he added.

Mr Grant said the US imported $31 billion of textiles annually, while the European Union imported about 69 billion, hence, it was prudent for Ghana to take advantage of it.

He encouraged the private industries to partner with each other to acquire benefits such as capital, state-of-the-art management practices, and opportunities to build new markets.

Mr Gregory Kankoh, President of the Association of Garment and Apparel Manufacturers, said the Ghanaian industry had proven its capability even in the midst of COVID-19 by producing high quantities of face masks for the health and educational sectors.

He advised industry players not to compete among themselves but against foreign companies that served as a hindrance to their operations with their less quality and less costly materials.

He appealed to the GIPC to find ways to promote made-in-Ghana goods among the citizenry and reduce their interest for second-hand clothing.

Mrs Nora Bannerman-Abbott, the CEO of Sleek Garments Export Limited, advised manufacturers and distributors of the textiles and garments industry to take advantage of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement to position themselves in the African market for recognition and partnership.

She also urged them to follow up to ensure the implementation of policies promised by the government to contribute to the growth of the industry.

Mr Michael Abanah, Acting Executive Director, Cotton Development Authority, said the cotton growers were currently unable to produce enough to feed the textile industry due to lack of requisite investments to procure machinery and other logistics for operations, and called for support in that regard.