The president of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), Mr Tony Oteng-Gyasi, has made a strong case for a vibrant Federation of West African Manufacturers' Associations (FEWAMA) to promote manufacturing activities in the West African sub-region. That was because the development of the manufacturing industries was crucial to poverty reduction in Africa. Mr Oteng-Gyasi, who is also the Managing Director of Tropical Cables and Conductors Limited (TCCL), stated this at a consultative meeting in Accra to discuss the need to revive decades ago. The Accra meeting was attended by representatives from Senegal, Togo, Burkina Faso, Cote D'Ivoire, Benin, Sierra Leone and Guinea Bisau. He stated that the solution to reducing poverty was not in the importation of cheap foreign goods, but in the development of Africa's own industry, which would generate income for its people and the continent as a whole. "Development without manufacturing is a mirage. It cannot grow any economy, he stressed. Mr Oteng-Gyasi emphasised the need to develop a single market in order to expand its marketing opportunities to sustain any kind of business, saying, "if we continue to look at our individual countries, it will be difficult for us to grow," he said. The AGI President said one of the ways in which West African businesses could grow rapidly was to revive the federation which, in the past, gave hope to growing businesses. A move to revive the federation, he added, must be pursued with vigour and called on representatives of the various countries to influence politi; cians to enact policies that on track. The Director General of the West African Economic and Monetary Union, Mr Yazas Egbare Tchohou, pledged his organisation's commitment to the process leading up to the revival of the federation. He cited a number of organisations borne out of such collaboration and added that it was possible for the federation to be revived. Mr Tchohou, however, advjsed that individuals who would implement FEWAMA must be selected carefully since their personal input would be needed to hasten the process. Source: Daily Guide