GHANA – Ghana has announced that twenty-four factories have so far been approved for construction under the government’s “One District One Factory (1D1F)” initiative to build one factory in every district with a close emphasis on the agricultural sector, reports GNA.

Deputy Trade and Industry Minister, Robert Ahomka-Lindsay said the category includes six existing factories seeking expansion, one had its own funds while the rest are new factories, all targeting creation of over 291,000 new jobs.

“Of that 173, 46% are in agro-processing, and 36% are manufacturing,” said Minister of Trade and Industry Alan Kyerematen.

“65% of the projects were expansions of existing factories that had collapsed, or were under-functioning, while 35% were entirely new projects.”

The selected products, which include edible vegetable oil, starch, alcohol and garment, will also be sold in the ECOWAS sub-region and the local Ghanaian market.

In February, an agro-processing company, Golden Finger Natural Foods announced that it was building an ultra-modern manufacturing company to commence operations at Kasapin expected to commence operations by the end of 2018.

The company said it was registering over 500 business entities as key distributors of their products and in collaboration with banks, would provide farmers with funding for production of fruits and vegetables.

So far China has proposed to support the project in US$500million funding for factories to be involved in the production and processing of garments, starch, and other items.

Business promoters would be assisted in fulfilling statutory requirements, facilitate the extension of power and other infrastructure to project sites, finalize land acquisition and registration processes in their respective districts.

The One District One Factory plan which Lindsay said will be delivered by 2020, was part of the federal government’s agenda to add value to natural resources to create jobs and wealth for the people.

According to him, out of the 24 factories, 20 of them would be operational by the end of this year and that the district assemblies would secure at least 50,000 acres of litigation-free land for plantation agriculture and additional 4,000 acres for industrial parks and other business projects.

The project seeks to enhance industrialization, which without have seen countries rely on imported goods at the end of the day result to negative balance and high unemployment rate.