The project, which is under the Global Development Alliance (GDA), is expected to provide gainful employment to more women who would constitute about 80 per cent of recruits and would substantially increase new apparel exports from Ghana to the US within a duty and quota-free regime under the African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA)

Essentially the agreement is between Dignity DTRT (Do The Right Thing), a mainly Ghanaian-owned business entity that exports apparel manufactured in Ghana and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The DTRT Group is West Africa’s largest apparel manufacturer and exporter and currently, Dignity DTRT Limited employs more than 1,600 skilled workers with about 75 per cent of them being women mainly from the streets and low income households.

Exploiting AGOA  opportunities 

Speaking at the launch of the project at the Adjabeng Free Zone Enclave, in Accra yesterday, President Akufo-Addo said the government was in the process of finalising Ghana’s new Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) export strategy and action plan to boost the volumes of exports to the United States to $500 million by 2020.

Reckoning that with Ghana unable to sufficiently exploit the AGOA opportunity, and, thereby, not realising any significant gains, President Akufo-Addo said the government was working to put measures in place to ensure that the country took full advantage of the U.S. market through the AGOA initiative.

Ghana exported items worth only US $29 million to the United States in 2016.

The President said “we aim at increasing our export volumes under AGOA to $500 million in 2020, which will create in its wake hundreds of thousands of jobs. The target is ambitious, but certainly achievable.”

The Dignity DTRT is set to export $30 million worth of clothing to the United States of America by 2018, under AGOA.

Dignity DTRT, President Akufo-Addo said, was a key part of the projection for increasing Ghana’s export volumes under AGOA to $500 million by 2020, while the company was expected to contribute some $82 million out of this amount.

President Akufo-Addo said the U.S. clothing market was worth US$100 billion dollars a year and that the countries of Eastern and Southern Africa were currently exporting several billion dollars’ worth of clothing every year to that market.

“We, in Ghana and West Africa, must match them. The opportunity is considerable, and we need to grab hold of it,” he held.

Govt to support textile industry

Towards that end, the President pledged the support of the government for textile and garment businesses and enterprises across Ghana in order to create jobs that provide security for individuals, families and communities.

He said it “falls squarely within our overall vision of making the development of the textile and garment industry a strategic anchor industry for Ghanaian industrialisation.”

President Akufo-Addo said the Dignity-DTRT project consistent with his government’s vision to make Ghana an industrial hub in West Africa to drive the socio-economic development of the country.

“From a growth rate of 15.1 per cent in 2008, the last year of the government of the outstanding Ghanaian statesman, His Excellency John Agyekum Kufuor, former President of the Republic, growth in industry slumped to 0.8 percent  in 2014, -0.3 percent in 2015, and further down to -1.4 percent in 2016,” he said.

He recounted that as a result of the relative normalisation of the power situation in the country, and the implementation of our business-friendly policies, industry, for the first quarter of 2017, recorded an impressive growth rate of 11.5 per cent, describing it as the highest sectoral growth in the economy.

Applauding the efforts of DTRT, the President said it had within a short space of three years, created a thriving, commercial-scale manufacturing operation that was achieving world-class levels of production efficiency.

“This has led it to become the largest clothing manufacturer in West Africa,” he added.

Unlocking the full potentials of the private sector

The President reiterated that the goal of his government was “to unlock the full potential of the private sector and the Ghanaian sense of enterprise to create jobs and prosperity for all Ghanaians, and to position Ghana as a preferred investment destination.”

The US Ambassador to Ghana, Mr Jackson said “we are pleased to support Dignity DTRT’s expansion which will create jobs and result in the expansion of DTRT’s AGOA eligible exports from Ghana by at least US$20 million annually.”

The Managing Director of Dignity DTRT Limited, Ms Salma Salifu said the company was delighted to partner with the USAID to provide on-the-job and pre-hire training to young Ghanaians who were beginning their careers in the apparel sector.

“This support from USAID will allow us to nearly double our workforce and greatly expand our production capacity,” she said with optimism.

Fact file

Dignity DTRT produces in excess of 25,000 shirts daily and has exported more than six million garments in the past 24 months to the USA under AGOA.

The company is 51 per cent owned by Dignity Industries, a wholly Ghanaian-owned and 49 per cent DTRT Apparel Limited, a Ghanaian-registered company with American ownership with offices in San Diego, California.

The partnership started in 2014 with 145 sewing machines and has the capacity to expand to 3,000 workers in the next year.