The textile industry in Ghana is facing unfair competition presently from outsiders through the importation of cheap inferior textiles onto the Ghanaian market. Akosombo Textiles Ltd (ATL), textile manufacturing company in Ghana who is now holding a workforce of 1,250 is on a verge of collapse due to cheap imports from Asia

The ATL management has been compelled to cut 350 jobs and has called on the government to treat this as a matter of urgency and to impose some control measures at the country’s ports and other entry points to check smuggling of textiles into the country in order to save the local companies from collapsing.

The increase in goods from China and India had also brought about low patronage of their products, which are more fashionable and of better quality than the cheap fabric imports.

ATL is not calling for the banning of importation of foreign textiles but wants a fair competition. The smugglers need to stop their act and pay the right taxes and duty to make the playing field level to engender competition. The government needs to ensure a level playing field in the textile industry before the local industries collapsed.

The importers of the pirated textiles not only evade taxes on imported textile prints but do not provide adequate labelling information on country of origin. Based on the price and texture of the print, buyers are unable to distinguish between the substandard and the genuine textiles. The substandard textile is cheaper and usually hard, while the genuine textile is soft and a bit costly.

If the company is not able to survival, all those people who are dependent on the company will be in serious trouble. ATL has urged the government to take quick measure against the textile piracy and save the local textile industry from imminent collapse.