Accra, July 24, GNA - The Ghana Cocoa Board (Cocobod) and an Indian jute manufacturing company, Ganges Jute PVT Limited, on Thursday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to establish a jute bag-stitching factory at Kumasi to reduce dependency on imports for cocoa bagging. The one million-dollar facility would also save cost, facilitate operations and generate employment and foreign exchange for the country. The factory would be solely financed by Ganges with Cocobod providing a seven-warehouse facility, as its equity.

Mr. Isaac Osei, Chief Executive, signed for the Cocobod and Mr. Abhishek Poddar, Director of Ganges initialled for his company. Mr Osei said jute bags remained an important input in cocoa production and as such its local manufacturing would facilitate the supply of the bags for cocoa production.

"With this, we can plan ahead and it would no longer be necessary for us to stock huge quantities during every session," he added. Mr Osei expressed the hope that a definitive agreement would be made soon to enable the project to begin.

Mr Poddar said the company had begun the necessary administrative work and was also prepared to begin the project.

He said the company would also finance a five million-dollar complete jute-manufacturing factory in the country, if the operations of the stitching factory were successful.