Ghana to follow SA's lead in textiles

Cape Town - The Western Cape clothing and textile industry had become the pattern from which Ghana wished to dress itself as a clothing and textile producer, Akwasi Osei-Adjei, Ghana's deputy minister of trade and industry, said on Friday.

Osei-Adjei, who led an eight-person delegation on a fact-finding mission of the clothing and textile business, said his country's textile industry had been reduced to tailors and seamstresses who made to measure.

Ghana needed to put the infrastructure in place and South Africa could assist with the technology and the machinery, which would not only enlarge the skills pool but also create more jobs.

Ghana would be used as the gateway for a market of about 250 million people from neighbouring countries.

Osei-Adjei said Ghana was also keen to learn how South Africa and the Western Cape had prepared to benefit from the US Africa Growth and Opportunity Act.

Like South Africa, Ghana had felt the impact of globalisation and the import of cheap and second-hand clothing by churches and non-governmental organisations.

"This is an African problem and we should tackle it by collaboration," Osei-Adjei said. "The end result is killing our industry. We need to co-operate with African countries to try and assess what we can do about this."

Ebrahim Rasool, the MEC for finance in the Western Cape, said he was delighted with the convergence of economic processes in the two countries.