<<Print>>

Textile manufacturers have expressed disappointment in government for endorsing the demise of the local textile industry in the country. The manufacturers say they have been taken aback by the decision of the Trade and Industry Ministry to halt the activities of the task force it had put in place to rid the market of pirated textile products. According the manufacture, the decision by the government does not only subvert the growth of the local textile industry, but also constitutes a subtle endorsement of the illicit activities of traders in pirated textiles in the country. �The Textile Garment and Leather Employer�s Union is shocked and gravely disappointed about the unilateral decision of the Ministry of Trade & Industry to suspend the operations of the Anti-Textile Piracy Taskforce, without recourse to the stakeholders, thereby EMBOLDENING the perpetrators of the elicit trading activities in the country,� the textile union said in response to the directive. The manufactures are also questioning government�s commitment to its obligation as a member of the World Trade Organisation to protect intellectual Property Rights and create a congenial environment for industries to grow and retain jobs. As a result, Textile and Garment workers across the country would be demonstrating tomorrow, to protest against unfair competition from cheap imported pirated goods, which is collapsing the textile industry in the country. The Workers union was last Friday given clearance by the police to embark on the demonstration. The textile industry in Ghana has been on the decline, mainly due to unfair competition from pirated designs of local textile manufactures, which are imported into the country from China. Information gathered by The Chronicle indicates that the major textile manufacturing companies are currently producing just about a third of their capacity, while others are on the verge of collapse, due to the influx of their pirated designs on the market. The perpetrators of these illegal activities only pirate the designs of the local textile manufactures, take it to China and produce them in large quantities and sold on the Ghanaian market at very cheap prices. To save the local industry from this unfair competition, the Ministry of trade issued a guideline early this year, for the importation of African print into the country. The guidelines were intended to provide a frame work of administrative procedure through which numerous unfair trade practices including evasion of imported duties, pirating of patent and trademarks and smuggling among many others could be controlled. The guideline included directives, which required all such importers to register with the Ministry of Trade to allow effective monitoring and an inspection of all imported African print to ensure they are not pirated designs from any local manufacturer. It is, however, not clear what informed the Ministry of Trade�s decision to sideline these guidelines to allow a boom in the trade of these pirated prints at the expense of collapsing indigenous industries.