Dealers in local textiles, have appealed to the government to strictly implement the laws on importation of textile products from other countries, especially from China.

The dealers said unbridled importation of textiles was doing great harm to the local textile industry and since imported textiles were cheap, they sold faster thereby throwing most of the local textile dealers out of business.

The dealers, who are mostly women, made the appeal when a group of West African journalists on training in Ghana visited the Makola Market as part of their training to seek views of traders on the state of the local textile industry in Ghana.

The dealers said imported textiles were made with designs and logos of the local textiles, making it difficult for the public to differentiate between the local and imported ones.

One of the local textile dealers, who spoke to GNA on condition of anonymity, said she had been dealing in the Ghana Textile Printers (GTP) and the Akosombo Textile Limited (ATL) for many years but of late the business had gone down because of the influx of the cheap imported textiles.

She said most customers preferred the imported textiles mainly from China, not because of quality, but because those textiles had pirated the local textiles designs and logos and appeared like the local ones.

She said there was the need for the government to implement the laws regarding importation because, enforcement of the law had not been effective and that had allowed the influx of the imported textiles.

GNA observed at the textiles enclave at Makola Market that there were many imported textiles on display than the locally produced textiles.

The General Secretary of the Textiles, Garments and Leather Employees Union (TGLEU), Mr Abraham Koomson, told the GNA in an interview that the influx of the imported textiles had almost collapsed the local industry.

He cited the drop of 25,000 employees in 1975 to only 2,500 as at 2011 as an example.

Mr Koomson said TGLEU’s concern was that the imported textiles should not pirate the local textiles and designs, and also not to evade taxes or under declare fabrics.

He said when all those anomalies were checked, the local textiles could compete favorably with the imported textiles as far as cost was concerned.

Mr Koomson said research had revealed that for many economic reasons including energy and labour cost, imported textiles are produced at lower cost coupled with the many lapses in the payment of import and custom duty taxes.**