Gov't Would Encourage Partnership With Investors - Kufuor

President John Agyekum Kufuor yesterday said government would encourage partnership between foreign investors and Ghanaians to promote the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). He said Ghana had a great competitive advantage with its location of being very close to the European and US markets and the 250 million people in the West Africa Sub-Region.

President Kufuor said this when Mr. John Sporidis, Chief Executive Officer of SunQuest International in the US and Ms. Rose M. Whitaker, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Whitaker Group paid a courtesy call on him at the Castle, Osu. Mr. Sporidis, who has 50 years experience in the textile industry in the US and has been involved in the AGOA operations for the past three years, lauded the ingenuity and capability of Ghanaians in the textile industry.

He has, therefore, placed an order for the production of 100,000 pairs of trousers a month at a cost of 450,000 dollars by AGRI Dot Com, a company established under the President's Special Initiative (PSI) under Garments and Textiles for export.

The contract estimated at about five million dollars a year would be increased to about 10 million dollars next year. Mr. Sporidis said in addition, about eight million dollars would be invested this year in Gold Coast Collection, a textile training company, under the PSI to train people to manufacture "Boxer Shorts" for export.

He said under AGOA, he had operations in eight African countries mostly in South and East Africa, adding that Ghana was the first country in West Africa where their operations had begun.

Mr. Sporidis said AGOA was a commitment to assist and develop Africa and bring African standards to the world market and not a situation where, products manufactured outside Africa were always imported into Africa."Africa has a lot of future in AGOA with Africans willing to move forward."

Ms. Whitaker said SunQuest International, is a leading US textile manufacturing firm and the first to produce FUBU (For Us By Us) now an international name. It has created about 12,000 jobs in eight African countries under AGOA and its investment in Ghana would help deepen the relationship between Ghana and the US.