Ghana:'Friday wear' to resuscitate textile & clothing industry

The national Friday-wear’ would be re-launched by the Ministry of Trade and Industry, as part of the Trade Sector Support Program. This national Friday-wear program has been introduced by the Kufuor government to make public and private sector workers to wear locally designed garments on Fridays.
The program, intended to resuscitate textile industry operations, has the ultimate objective to increase the demand for locally manufactured textiles particularly African prints, informed the Minister, Ms. Hanna S. Tetteh.
Friday wear was a catch-phrase to create the desired impression in people’s mind regarding the objective and a number of activities had been lined up in all the regions as part of this National Friday-wear program, added Ms. Hanna.
The textile companies were impacted by the importers who smuggled textiles without paying the required duties, she said, noting that the local textile designs are imitated and reproduced with their logos.
Due to this, many factories had to close down resulting in an increase in joblessness amongst the workers and a further decline in the textiles sector of the economy, said Ms Tetteh.
In this case, she observes that, the Ministry views media as the stakeholder, which can create awareness and promote national interest for local textiles to resuscitate the operations of the textile sector.

Source: www.fibre2fashion.com