One hundred and eighty-one factories have been enrolled under the government’s One District One Factory (1D1F) programme since its launch in 2017. Fifty-seven of them are currently operating, while 22 are still under construction.
This was made known by the Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Kwadwo Alan Kyeremanten when he took his turn at the Meet the Press Series organised by the Ministry of Information on Tuesday.
Giving a breakdown of the figures, Mr Kyeremanten said 33 factories being financed by seven local banks will commence implementation before the end of 2019.
Small-scale processing facilities
Another 56 being small-scale processing facilities and financed by the African Development Bank (AfDB), will commence before the end of 2019. $200,000 has been earmarked for each of the 56 projects, the Minister said.
The 56 small-scale processing facilities will be owned by youth groups who will be trained to manage the facilities.
This, according to the Minister, is to ensure that the youth are not left out of the 1D1F programme.
He said in communities where there may be an abundance of some agriculture commodities, smaller processing plants will be established to help reduce post-harvest losses.
Common user-processing facilities
Mr Kyeremanten also noted that the AfDB had earmarked $2 million to commence the implementation of five common user-processing facilities which would be managed by farmer groups.
The Minister indicated that some Chinese banks had earmarked $400 million for the implementation of eight projects which will be ready to commence implementation before the end of 2019.
Why two districts may have one factory
According to Mr Kyeremanten, there were many misconceptions that the 1D1F programme is a state enterprises project; but explained that what government meant to do was to support the private sector to establish enterprises.
Thus, he said, although government’s intention is to establish a factory in each district, there could be two districts with a common resource endowment and for that matter, only one factory would be set up in one of those districts.
He said that was why out of the 181 factories which have been established, 129 are new companies under the 1D1F while 52 of them are already in existence.
Source: Graphic Online
