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The Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) is calling for a local content policy for the transport sector to, among other things, spell out the rules of engagement to foreign companies operating there. The association is convinced that such a policy would help give the citizenry and indigenous businesses in particular the urge to also profit from the prospects in the sector. The President of the AGI, Nana Owusu Afari, made the proposal in an interview with the GRAPHIC BUSINESS shortly after opening the association�s Local Content Exhibition and Conference which ended in Accra last Thursday. �We are worried, why not, that there is no local content policy on the transport sector. �Its absence is making life difficult for local businesses. They are not able to get the relevant resources, expertise and capacity to be able to compete with their foreign counterparts,� the AGI President said. �How many Ghanaians businesses can acquire aircrafts by themselves to be able to operate airlines in the aviation sector,� Nana Afari asked. He was also worried that the rising cost of doing business in the maritime industry could limit indigenous businesses and the citizenry in particular from venturing into the sector. �The shipping business is also growing and we (local businesses) will also want to operate there. But look at the cost associated. It is almost impossible for interested persons to venture there and that is where the concern is,� he added. He thus called on the Ministry of Transport to create a local content policy that would help convince foreign companies in the sector to sub-contract businesses to incapacitated local enterprises. �When we say local content it does not necessarily mean saying reserve this part of the business to local businesses, no. It simply means specifying to the foreign companies that portions of their operations should be given to locals.� �In the aviation sector for instance, have we bothered to know who supplies them their snacks, juice and the rest. These should be our concern,� Nana Afari. The successful formulation of a local content policy for the transport sector as is being demanded by AGI would bring to three the number of such policies in the country. A local content policy was adopted last year to give maximum advantage to locals in the nascent oil and gas industry. The same has been done for the mining sector, nearly five decades into the extraction of mineral resources in the country.