Ghana’s textile sector still in distress

Ghana’s textile industry continues to face challenges, amid growing competition from cheap imports.
Currently, except Akosombo Textile Limited (ATL), household names such as Ghana Textile Print (GTP), Ghana Textile Manufacturing Company (GTMC) and Printex have all shut down their spinning and weaving departments due to cheap imports from China.

These sections were said to be employing a chunk of the labour in the industry. However, the companies could not keep them and pay them over thirty-times the amount of the import from China.

Due to the hardships the companies have all resorted to importing gray baft and semi-finished / bleached cloth for printing here. GTP now has a workforce of about 500, Printex has around 300 and GTMC about 120, including management.

ATL has the largest workforce so far of about 1,400 and is currently at the negotiation table on wage increases.
Industry watchers are wandering the fate of tertiary graduates who pursue Industrial Art courses with textile option on the labour market as the sector faces total collapse?

No wonder students now opt for business programmes at the tertiary level rather than technical courses.
Mr. Abraham Koomson, of the Textile, Garments and Leather Employees Union, (TEGLEU) complained, “Still the problems with Ghana’s textile industry exist and is getting worse each day.”

He argues that there is the need for government to find out why the sector is collapsing and why Ghana cannot compete with China in order to find lasting solutions, rather than taking a defeatist attitude.

President John Agyekum Kufuor’s pronouncement during this year’s May Day parade that Ghana cannot survive better where textile production is concerned, unless she goes into partnership with China received mixed reaction from stakeholders.

He said, “If you can’t beat them join them’ is a well known survival strategy. I wish to call on labour to corporate in order to sustain industry and jobs.”
As government goes all out for China, efforts of stakeholders to revitalize the textile and garment industry is set to hit the blocks since the economy is recording a rapid surge in the sale of fake logos and designs of most textile firms on the market.

The president’s announcement comes at a time when the country’s textile industry is struggling to hold its own. With this pronouncement, what happens to the so called campaign to check the influx of cheap textile from Asia, especially China into the country?

Industry watchers are worried that if the flood gates are opened for the already China- saturated textile Ghanaian market the industry will totally collapse.

Perhaps, the printing of the 50th Independence anniversary cloth from China marked the beginning of the partnership. In spite of the fanfare that was attached to the re-opening of Juapong Textiles Ltd, now known as Volta Star Textile less than three months ago, recent media reports hint of an imminent closure again.

Information reaching Public Agenda show that Juapong has a heap of gray baft stacked in its ware house with no hope of buyers. Textiles that come from China do not only carry the designs of Ghanaian cloths but are imitated to let them appear like made in Ghana cloth.

Although the Chinese textiles are not durable compared to made in Ghana cloth, they sell far below Ghanaian textiles.Consequently, most retailers of textiles from local textile companies such as Akosombo Textile Limited (ATL) Printex, and Ghana Textiles Prints (GTP) are said to have abandoned the local cloth and are now selling wax prints from China which is far cheaper.

The textile industry in Ghana used to contribute significantly to the Gross Domestic Product, (GDP) and employed a chunk of the teeming unemployed youth.