The Association of Ghana Industries' (AGI) annual Local Content Exhibition and Conference has been expanded to cover the mining, housing, energy and manufacturing sectors of the economy. The event started with a focus on the nascent oil and gas sector, thereby providing institutions within that area with the opportunity to showcase their products and services to the general public. However, the Executive Director of AGI, Mr Seth Twum-Akwaboah, said the rising benefits of the programme had necessitated the need to spread it to other equally important sectors of the economy. He added that the association was particularly impressed with the fact that some public institutions had started developing their own policies to support local content development. AGI has consistently indicated that local content should not only be driven by policies, laws and regulations, but also with strong emphasis on capacity development. "What the AGI Local Content Exhibition and Conference does is that it seeks to bring all these key elements to bear by providing a platform that exposes opportunities in all these areas at the exhibition", Mr Twum-Akwabiah said. The AGI Local Content Exhibition is an annual initiative that gives policy makers and businesses the platform to discuss local content issues which informs policy direction. It also transfers knowledge on how enterprises can build their capacities to meet the expectations of the international companies. The programme has, over the years, been supported by the Ministries of Energy, Trade and Industry, Lands and Natural Resources, as well as key oil and gas partners such as Tullow Oil, Ghana National Petroleum Corporation and the Volta River Authority. The Petroleum Commission and the Ministry of Water Resources, Works and Housing, which joined the local content development, have also supported the event in diverse ways. This year's edition, the fourth in a series, will be on the theme 'Making local content work' and will run from October 21 to 24, at the Accra International Conference Centre.