Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia, on Friday, said the government's request for the local production of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to aid the fight against Covid-19 demonstrates its commitment to promoting the manufacturing industries.

The government has selected five firms to produce 3.6 million PPE, including face masks, medical scrubs and medical gowns.

The Vice President, who toured three of these companies, in Accra, assured them that they would be assisted to sustain their production even after the crisis.

Dr Bawumia visited Dignity DTRT, Sleek Garments and Cadling Fashion.

He was accompanied by the Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen.

"As you know, we are dealing with the Coronavirus pandemic and one of the challenges we have in this country and across all countries has been how to protect our frontline health workers," he stated.

"There is a global demand, whether you are talking about the UK or the US but there is a shortage of PPE.

"We have been looking at how to get these PPE to our health workers because we don’t want them in the process of saving our lives, to lose theirs.

"Indeed, we have a real champion of Ghanaian industries in the person of our Minister for Trade and Industry, who said, we should look at producing these PPE in the country.

"Therefore, we discussed this at Cabinet and it was adopted very quickly."

The Vice President said he was very impressed by the efficiency of the companies visited and commended the workers for their skill and commitment.

"Today, we are seeing what Ghanaian ingenuity and industry is all about and we can see these hard-working women and men who are working so efficiently".

"Government is fully committed (to local industries) not just in this short-term but long-term. So you can expect more orders.

"Once production capacity gets to where it should be, then we will not have any need to import these items going forward.

"This will be part of the post COVID-19 architecture, and we will be having these sort of things produced in Ghana rather than import them.  This is what the President was talking about - 'take these opportunities to grow Ghanaian industries, create jobs in Ghana, create income -' and I think that is what you are doing here".