President Nana Akufo-Addo says 106 factories constructed under the government’s flagship, One District, One Factory (1D1F) initiative, are operational within various districts of the country.

The 106 factories represented 38 per cent of 278 projects that are at various stages of implementation in all 16 regions as of March this year.

In his State of the Nation Address, the President indicated that 148 of the factories were under construction while 24 projects were at the mobilisation stage.

“58 out of the 278 1D1F Projects have been developed as enterprises fully owned by youth groups, with direct Government support. These youth companies are owned by between 40 and 50 youth as shareholders,” he said.

Additionally, he said five medium-scale state-of-the-art agro-processing Common-User Facilities (CUFs), had been established with direct support from the Government and owned by various farmer groups, whose operational capacity was previously limited due to lack of processing facilities.

“These farmer-owned companies have been established in five (5) Districts, namely Dormaa West, Savelugu, Sefwi Akontonbra, Sekyere Central and Tarkwa Nsuaem. They cover oil palm processing, rice milling and the processing of maize into maize grits,” he said.

The 1D1F initiative was rolled out by the government under the 10-point industrial transformation Agenda which aims to transform the economy from import-dependent to one focused on manufacturing, value addition and exporting finished goods.