178-acre garment village soon

Strenuous efforts are under way to establish a Garment Village within the Export Free Zone at Tema, under the President's Special Initiative. The Government has released 178 acres of land within the zone for the village.

Nana Tweneboa Boateng, PSI Coordinator for Garment and Textiles, said in an interview in Accra that bids from reputable contractors will be opened on 18th of this month and contract will be awarded before the end of the year.

Already a consultant, ABP Consult, has been appointed just as site layout plans have also been completed. The village will have 100 medium scale factories, 23 large-scale factories and 10 extra large factories and the construction will be in three phases.

Nana Boateng said the first phase of 30 medium-size factories is expected to be completed by next April. Phase Two will have 23 large factories while the third phase will have 10 extra large factories.

All the three phases will be completed by the end of 2004. The factories will be equipped with machinery and owned by Ghanaians who will be producing for export. Projections are that the 30 factories when completed will employ a total of 15,000 and earn about $5m each by the end of the first year, said Nana Boateng.

The Coordinator indicated that the implementing of the PSI is to set the vision and strategy at the national level as well as actively facilitate the implementation of the PSI projects by providing technical assistance and resources to the participating companies.

It may either be directly through government's own programmes and budget allocation or by mobilising donor funding. Government has also made a significant contribution in kind by granting the PSI and the Ghana Export Roundtable land development rights for a 178-acre parcel of land in the Free Zone enclave at Tema which is to be developed into a Garments Village.

The PSI is one of the best examples of a public-private sector partnership to generate new investment, in particular industry, and with a well-focused implementation strategy and set targets. That is one of the reasons why the Ghana Export Roundtable was made up of both private sector institutions and companies.

Meanwhile, a joint venture of Mauritius-Ghanaian company will begin the production of T-shirts in Accra next February.