Hundreds of potential and expectant business owners and workers are undergoing training in Kumasi to prepare them to set up 50 factories in the Ashanti Region.

It is the first phase of the Industrial Empowerment Summit targeting 350 factories nationwide over five years within the framework of government’s ‘One District, One Factory’ policy.

Local NGO, Constellar Institute for Creative Studies and Kumasi Technical University, are spearheading the summit in partnership with Multimedia Group, Kumasi.

Chiefs, business executives, academicians and artisans, among others, are being targeted under the programme.

Ideas from a five-day executive and non-executive session will form the framework for a business incubator programme to concretize the business entities.

Executive Director of Constellar Institute for Creative Studies, Professor Ramses Akosa, took the gathering through Ghana’s industrialization history and the gaps.

“It is misleading for us to think that we cannot set up factories because of money, the moment somebody says he will provide machinery he has contributed financially,” he said.

Ashanti Regional Minister, Simon Osei Mensah, told the opening ceremony that private sector interest is key for successful implementation.

“Private investors are expressing interest in the government agenda and this is good for the country,” he said.

He wants Metropolitan and Municipal Assemblies to take a critical interest in the initiative.

Education authorities believe government’s investment in Technical Universities will help improve human resource development for ‘One District One Factory’.

Acting Vice- Chancellor of Kumasi Technical University, Prof. Asiamah Yeboah entreated “government to invest heavily in infrastructural, human resource, and technological needs of technical universities and polytechnics”.

General Manager at Multimedia Group, Kumasi, Jim Aglah, stated: “If the media as the fourth estate of the realm cannot join hands with the private sector to develop private businesses and create jobs for the people then we are failing the country”.