SAVE THESE INDUSTRIES (AUGUST 2, 2010)

THE growth of local industries is an important prerequisite for the enhancement of a country's economy and naturally represents a critical area in the formulation of national development policies.
All over the world, countries determined to ensure sustainable growth of their economies put in place measures that will guarantee a smooth path of growth for indigenous industries.
This is not only essential to provide the people with affordable goods and services but also strengthen the export base of indigenous industries, reduce imports and provide jobs for the people.
Thus, some developed economies have put in place policies that insulate local industries from unfair competition usually generated by cheap imports.
There is usually the recognition that governments need to protect their own, especially in a very globalised village where boundaries are becoming very porous and goods seep in and out of a country with so much ease, sometimes through illegal means.
In Ghana, the woes of the poultry and textile industries have been the subject of many discussions and, while there is the general recognition that cheap textile and poultry imports into the country have virtually brought those two local industries to their knees, very little appears to have been done to address the threat posed by those imports.
Indeed, many local companies in both the poultry and textile industries have folded up after suffering the debilitating effect of the cheap imports that virtually drowned their products.
The recent concern expressed by the Ghana National Association of Poultry Farmers again throws the issue into public spotlight.
At the end of a three-day workshop held in Accra, the National Chairman of the association, Mr Kwadwo Asante, appealed to the government to discourage the “dumping of cheap imported poultry into the country”.
While poultry has become a favourite source of animal protein for many Ghanaians, the local industry has not benefited from this increased patronage. Instead, today cheap imports have taken the place of the locally produced products.
The DAILY GRAPHIC shares the concern of the local poultry farmers and impresses on the government to consider their plea and ensure that they are insulated against the cheap imports.
There have been suggestions that by way of policy intervention, the government should, as a way of ensuring equity in the prices of the imports and the locally produced birds, increase duties on the imports and also introduce subsidies to local farmers to help them boost their production levels.
The statistics paint a very gloomy picture and make a strong case for urgent intervention from the government.
It is estimated that while in 1992 about 95 per cent of the country’s poultry’s requirements was supplied by the local industry, the figure decreased to a paltry 11 per cent in 2002 and, presently, it is believed to be a single digit.
The revelation by Mr Asante that the local poultry industry has become seasonal, blossoming only during the Christmas, the Ramadan and the Easter festivities, should be a source of concern to a country whose economy has agriculture as its backbone.
The DAILY GRAPHIC has no doubt whatsoever that urgent intervention by the government will save the poultry and textile industries. We, therefore, urge it to deal decisively with the issue.