A former Director of the Eastern Region Centre for National Culture, Mr. J.K Ankamah, has observed that low patronage of locally manufactured textiles had contributed to the collapse of the industry.

He said this development has a great repercussion on the economy as many people were losing their job, and called on government to revamp the textiles industry.

Mr. Ankamah disclosed these to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) after presenting a paper at the Regional Policy Fair on “Culture and the Economy in Perspective,” at Koforidua,.

He said that the Ghana Textile Print and Akosombo Textile Limited, the major textile manufacturers, were struggling to survive whiles entrepreneurs in the batik, tye and dye businesses had been thrown out of businesses.

Mr. Ankamah stressed that the local textile manufacturing companies should be supported to enable them to sustain the production of local and indigenous textiles, and said culture was not only about dancing and drumming but it involved the way of dressing of the people.

He appealed to government to encourage Ghanaians and all departments and agencies to patronize locally produced textiles.

Statistics have shown that since 2000, about 20,000 employees in the textile industry had lost their jobs because of the collapse of the industry, due to low patronage and invasion of foreign textiles.

This figure is aside that of the many young people who were trained in batik tye and dye over the last 10 years, but were out of businesses for lack of market for their products.**