Trade and Industry Minister, Alan Kyerematen has announced that 12 projects under the one district one factory (1D1F) have signed joint venture partnerships between selected districts and business promoters.
This forms part of the 22 Engineering Procurement and Construction (EPC) turnkey contracts signed between businesses, selected district assemblies represented by the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MOTI), and the China National Building Materials (CNBM) Corporation.
CNBM, known for high quality modern facility and factory construction, will support Ghanaian businesses to market their products in the Chinese market.
At the signing ceremony, Mr Kyerematen said “part of the implementation framework for the programme requires that, in the event that the business promoter requires the partnership of the government through the district assemblies, government’s share should not exceed 30 percent.”
Out of the 12 joint venture projects, eight are starch processing plants; two vegetable oil processing plants [one for high quality groundnut oil and the other for refined palm oil]; one garment factory and one maize processing plant.
The other 10 projects of the 22 include; two starch processing plants; two soya bean plant [one will be a soya milk processing plant]; two rice milling plants[ with about 200 tonnes per day capacity]; two alcohol plant [with 150 tonne production capacity expected to substitute import of alcohol]; one garment factory; and one diaper plant.
The total investment value for the 22 projects is US$ 400 million and will benefit all 10 regions of the country.
The framework envisages that the contributions of the district assemblies or government will not exceed 15 percent, but it could go up to a maximum of 30 percent, if need be, the Minister explained.
He stated that, the projects are a private sector driven intervention and government is only facilitating the establishment of these enterprises.
Kyerematen noted that, there are further negotiations with the India EXIMBank, Turkey and UK financial institutions.
As at March 31, 2018, 700 business plans had been submitted. Out of these, 602 have reviewed and 313 of them are designated as bankable and potentially feasible to be implemented.
Local banks under the programme would serve as intermediaries between the business promoters and the Chinese financial institutions that are providing financing to support what CNBM is going to provide in support of these projects.
These banks include; National Investment Bank (NIB), Universal Merchant Banks (UMB), Barclays Bank, adb Bank, GCB Bank, EXIMBank, and Ecobank.
By Joshua W. Amlanu
