Government says it has made significant strides in developing the Presidential Special Initiatives (PSI) idea and that areas have been identified and are receiving attention.

The areas are garments and textiles, clothing technology and training centre, model production unit, a garment city at the Tema free zone enclave, Industrial salt, oil palm and cassava starch.

Mr. Kyeremanten said this when he addressed the Meet The Press Series in Accra on Tuesday. The PSI is a private public private sector partnership programme designed to develop new pillars of growth for the Ghanaian economy, by accelerating the development of selected key products into lead export earners capable of generating employment.

Mr. Kyeremanten said the products were chosen based on various criteria including the fact that they are domestic resource-based; create employment, mobilizing rural and vulnerable communities and have a multiplier effect on the economy with forward and backward linkages. He explained that 100 entrepreneurs have been selected and are being assisted to become medium scale garment manufacturers.

"A modern clothing technology training centre has been established in Accra to train young men and women in industrial machine utilization and mass production techniques."

Mr. Kyeremanten said about 17 hectares of land has been acquired at the Tema Export Processing Zone to be developed into a modern garment city with factory units that will be rented out to companies.

"Ninety-two medium-scale factories, 10 large scale factories and 10 extra large-scale factories have been constructed for this purpose." On the industrial salt initiative, Mr. Kyeremanten said it is meant to systematically address the various constraints facing the salt industry in Ghana and make it an internationally competitive one with the capacity for producing salt for export.

He said six production sites have been identified, while 15 existing production units have been completed with 10 new companies licensed. The Minister said four local industry experts on salt have been engaged while national standards will soon be established.

A salt producer, who controls 50 per cent of Brazilian salt exports is in the country to develop the industry. He said the oil palm initiative also seeks to put 100,000 hectares of new oil palm plantation in place over the next five years to meet local demand. "This would be increased to 300,000 hectares in subsequent years to meet the demand in West Africa."

Cassava starch is also receiving attention with the aim of making it a major export revenue earner as well as a major vehicle for job creation and poverty reduction in rural communities. He said the nation is producing only 20,000 tonnes per annum, which is far less than the market demand of 100,000 tonnes per annum.