President Kufuor leaves for US

President John Kufuor begins a week's visit to the United States on Friday June 22 to attend a UN Conference on AIDS, which would be held from June 25 to 27.
Briefing journalists on the President's itinerary, deputy Government Spokesman, Kwabena Agyepong, said President Kufuor together with Presidents Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal and Alpha Omar Konare of Mali would meet President George W. Bush at the White House where they would discuss sub-regional issues, especially the conflict in the Mano River Basin.
"President Kufuor will also give his first address to the UN General Assembly during the trip and interact with the Ghanaian Community in Washington, meet the Ghana Mission at the UN and have breakfast with Mr Kofi Annan Secretary-General of the United Nations."
President Kufuor would also meet with potential investors in Washington. Before the President leaves for the US, he would launch an Inter-Ministerial Facilitative Team on Trade and Agro-Business.
"The team will be headed by the President himself in line with his Golden Age of Business Concept. It is a special initiative for accelerated export development."
It would involve the Ministries of Trade and Industry, Employment and Manpower Development, Private Sector Development and Finance.
Mr Agyepong said an action programme for garments and textiles has been developed in order to help them take advantage of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act enacted recently by the US government. "The textile programme would be done on a three-tier basis of large scale, medium-scale and small-scale textile companies. Ten firms from South East Asia have been identified to relocate in Ghana to effect the large-scale textile programme."
This is expected to rake in total export revenue of 460 million dollars with a job component of 10,000. "The medium and small scale textile companies such as batik and tie and dye will be given technical and marketing assistance to enable them to take advantage of markets abroad."
Mr Agyepong said President Kufuor would on Friday lunch an integrated cassava starch production and export initiative with a core of 25,000 farmers in Awutu-Effutu-Senya and Akwa Denkyira in the Central Region and Asuogyaman in the Eastern Region.
The initiative, which is to be implemented on old and new farms, would have farm holdings of a hectare each. Code-named COVE (Co-operative Village Enterprise), the project is expected to produce 1.9 million tons of cassava over the next four years to produce between 400 to 500 tons of starch for export with a total export earning of beyond 100 million dollars, Mr Agyepong said.