The President?s Special Initiative on Garments and Textiles (PSI-GT) will provide jobs for about 70,000 people directly, and 20,000 others indirectly, when it becomes fully operational.

This will help address the problems of unemployment, rural-urban drift and the harsh poverty found in some communities.

Hajia Alima Mahama, the Deputy Minister for Trade, Industry and President?s Special Initiatives, stated this at Sekondi Takoradi in the Western Region in a speech read on her behalf at the graduation of 150 youths who had participated in a six-month course of training in textile and soap-making, under the Skills Training and Employment Programme (STEP).

She said that within a four-year period the textiles and garment industry was expected to generate annual foreign exchange earnings of over 3 billion U.S. dollars.

Hajia Alima Mahama explained that the PSI was designed to accelerate the growth of the private sector within the context of the President?s vision of creating a ?Golden Age of Business.?