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President John Dramani Mahama has promised to train over one thousand creative arts practitioners this year.

The training, with support from the Japan International Corporation Agency, would see many creative artistes, particularly the small scale ones receiving training and support to expand their business to create employment for others.

Mrs Elizabeth Ofosu-Adjare, the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts, made this known during a get-together for creative arts practitioners in the Ashanti Region.

The event afforded practitioners and policy makers the platform to interact and take stock of their programme and activities for 2015 and to strategize for the New Year.

President Mahama said the creative arts industry would also feature prominently in his agenda for the year, because of the enormous jobs and income it had created and generated for the youth.

He said government has released another GhȻ1 million specifically to the creative arts industry and urged them to come up with sustainable projects and programmes that could be funded from the money.

The President also promised the creative arts practitioners a secretariat to facilitate more coordination and interaction between the practitioners and policy makers.

Meanwhile government would create a Creative Arts Council as stipulated by the legal and regulatory framework for the industry, for which practitioners’ views and comments would be solicited.

Mrs Ofosu-Adjare, said the Ministerial status given to the creative arts sector by the President through Executive Instrument was a confirmation of the important role the sector played in the country’s economic growth and development.

She called for more collaboration between the various groups that make up the industry such as hairdressers, make-up artistes, tailors, beauticians, visual artists, musicians, actors and actresses, film producers and directors.

She implored them to strategize on how best they could complement each other’s work for the mutual benefit of the tourism industry.

Mrs Ofosu Adjare particularly appealed to the film industry to unite more and use their films to portray the rich and diverse culture and tourist sites of Ghana.

In respect of the film bill, the Minister said the President has given his approval and it is currently in Parliament awaiting approval into an act.