Garments village for Dawa industrial Zone

Date: Nov 27, 2019.    BY: Benjamin Xornam Glover

Managers of the Dawa Industrial Zone (DIZ) enclave say they have designated 1,000 acres of land at the Dawa Industrial Park as a free zone enclave to empower the private sector to champion the country’s transformational agenda.

The front view of the industrial zone

The company has also allocated 200 acres of land dedicated as a garments village at the enclave.

 The Chief Executive of LMI Holdings, Mr Kojo B. Aduhene, who disclosed this at Dawa on November 19, 2019 indicated that the necessary legislative backing was being prepared to make the space available on very competitive terms.

Delegation

Mr Aduhene said this when a 16-member delegation from the Global Multinational Garments Brands toured the Dawa Industrial Zone.

 Members of the delegation included representatives of some of the most admired fashion and lifestyle companies in the world, such as PVH, H&M, and VF Asia Sourcing Limited.

The visit, which was facilitated by the Ministry of Trade and Industry in collaboration with the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, was to explore sourcing opportunities and consider establishing a vertically integrated textile mill on a long term basis.

Mr Aduhene welcomed the delegation to the DIZ and said the enclave had the capacity to accommodate all classes of industry, including the garments sector.

 The enclave

The Dawa Industrial Zone Limited is a wholly-owned subsidiary of LMI Holdings.

 The DIZ sits on an initial 2,000-acre land. The enclave comes with a 330-kilovolt (KV) electricity sub-station, the largest privately funded electricity distribution sub-station, with the capacity to supply some 132MVA electricity to industrial and commercial customers within the Dawa Free Zones area.

Mr Aduhene said the quality and reliability of electricity at the enclave was comparable to first world levels, with over 99 per cent uptime over the past 12 months.

He said the Garments Village, when established in the enclave, would be eligible for preferential tariffs at the government’s discretion.

Industrial ecosystem

The Executive Director of LMI Holdings, Mr Ernest Owusu-Afari, in an interview, said the Dawa industrial city had a broad ecosystem of industrial and residential developments, all designed to drive Ghana’s industrial development.

Access to ports

He indicated that the DIZ offered litigation free and serviced industrial plots, strategically situated 45 kilometres east of the country's major seaport of Tema, stressing that with the highway being improved to include a major intersection at the Tema Motorway Roundabout, the travel time could be reduced further.

Mr Owusu-Afari said planning permission had also been secured for a railway branch line to connect the DIZ to the Inland Port at Mpakadan which was at an advanced stage of construction.

That, he explained, would connect the DIZ by rail to the Tema Port and facilitate import of inputs and exports of finished products, stressing that the rail line, would will later be expanded to the Northern Parts of the country and Burkina Faso across the Volta Lake, would also facilitate the import of cotton from Burkina Faso.

Mr Roger Hubert (2nd right) and a member of the delegation interacting with Mr Kojo B. Aduhene (right), Chief Executive of LMI Holdings, and other officials of the industrial zone during the tour.

Additional services

Mr Owusu-Afari said the World Bank and its private sector financing arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), were funding the installation of an expandable water treatment plant with daily capacity of 4,000 cubic metres to provide reliable water to serve the DIZ.

He disclosed that LMI Holdings had set aside 60 acres for the construction of an affordable and middle-income residential estate within a walking distance of the proposed DIZ Garments Village to meet the human comfort needs of employees.

Mr Ernest Owusu-Afari (right), Executive Director, LMI Holdings, briefing delegates of the Global Multinational Garment Brands who toured the Dawa Industrial Zone.

The executive director added that the DIZ was already served by a high speed fibre optic data network for effective communication, while the catchment area offered a pool of skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled labour that met the kinds of opportunities that a labour intensive industry like the textile and garments industry provided.

Mr Owusu-Afari said the DIZ provided unparalleled advantages to the global garments brand leaders and expressed the hope that the members of the delegation would seize the opportunity to establish their industry in Ghana to further develop the country in the industry.

Writers email: benjamin.glover@ graphic.com.gh

via: https://www.graphic.com.gh/news/general-news/garments-village-for-dawa-industrial-zone.html