THE President of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), Nana Owusu Afari, has stressed the need for a change in attitude towards business to conform to changing trends in the world.
“The world is changing; businesses are changing; technology is changing, hence the need to change minds to follow the trend of change globally,” he said.
Nana Afari said this at the seventh annual retreat of the association in Ho at the weekend.
According to him, the Volta Region was ripe for industrial development and expansion and wondered what was hindering the take-off of industrial growth of the region.
He said the retreat had been sent to the region with the view to stimulating a new sense in members to know their importance in industry.
Nana Afari also said the retreat was to learn new ways of growing business and strengthen advocacy in view of the fact that the government had acknowledged that the small-scale sector was the engine of growth.
He said the Volta Region had been holding many industrial forums but was still not attracting investment and, therefore, charged the indigenes to take the mantle of industrial opportunities.
“People will not come to invest when the indigenes are running away,” he said, adding that the people should join forces to lobby the government to bring funds for industrial estates in Ho and other district capitals.
The Deputy Volta Regional Minister, Col Cyril Necku (retd), said many nations were called developed because of their high level of industrialisation, contrary to what was happening in Ghana which exploited resources to feed industries in the developed world.
He said the situation would not change in Ghana, in spite of its oil discovery, if it did not make adequate investment in the petro-chemical sector, in which case it would only remain an oil exporter.
Col Necku, therefore, charged the AGI to forward credible proposals to the government to stimulate growth.
A leading industrialist in the Volta Region, Mr Theophilus Gadzanku, alleged that the banks were not interested in the manufacturing sector and long-term businesses in the region but were only attracted to the services sector, especially in petrol filling stations.
He also emphasised a change in the mentality of the people towards development because efforts to establish light and heavy industrial zones had failed.
An auto blacksmith at Hohoe, Mr Emmanuel Morni, urged the AGI to assess the field in order to know the real values of various trades, since some of them had developed to a stage where they coped with foreign technologies.
The Rector of the Ho Polytechnic, Dr Dzakpasu Afun, called for sponsorship for polytechnic students to make them receive appropriate training to meet all demands of industry because the manufacturing and production sectors hinged on technical expertise that was only derived from the polytechnics.
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