Tourism Ministry to salvage dying craft industry

The Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts has set up four craft centres in the Ashanti Region to save the creative arts industry, which stakeholders say may die soon if not resourced.

The move follows recent calls of the craft industry players who expressed worry about the downward trend of the otherwise booming business, as the result of the growing taste for foreign goods by the citizenry.

The centres are Adanwomase and Bonwire for kente-weaving, Ntonsu for the Adinkra textile printing, and Ahwiaa for wood carving.

Mr Ekow Sampson, the Ashanti Regional Manager of the Ghana Tourist Authority (GTA), told the Ghana News Agency, in an interview that plans were also underway to revamp the Pankrono Pottery Village, which is also going down with the lack of ready market and inadequate land mass for mining clay.

He attributed the situation to the sales of clay lands by the chiefs around that area.

Regarding the availability of wood for wood carvers, Mr. Sampson said the industry was faced with restrictions from the Forestry Commission (FC), and explained that his outfit was working on acquiring license to get timber directly from the forest concessions.

He said the GTA was also working to bring all craft centres in the Region under its purview to facilitate data collection, which would aid the proper planning of the craft industry.

“The Ministry is also dealing with the eradication of counterfeits in the system, especially, the Chinese version of the Ghanaian Kente."