A six-member Indian delegation are in the country to explore ways of establishing a jute manufacturing company to ease the importation of jute cocoa sacks.

The delegation has therefore, submitted proposals to ministries of Trade and Industries, Private Sector Development and Food and Agriculture for consideration.

Mr. Arun Kumar Bal, leader of the delegation announced this at a meeting with representatives from the Ministries of the Trade and Industry, Food and Agriculture, Ghana Cocoa Board and leaders of Cocoa farmers associations in Accra.

Currently Ghana is importing about 8-10 million pieces of jute sacks during cocoa seasons. Mr Bal said, if the proposal received the required attention, Ghana stood the chance of benefiting from a 50 per cent decrease of jute price on the world market and would provide a sizeable number of orders by Ghana Cocoa Board usually placed on Indian manufacturers.

He noted that jute bags manufactured in India were toxically safe since they were tested by accredited laboratories and there was no possibility of any health hazards from the use of the sacks.

Mr Bal hinted that between four to five million pieces of Indian jute sacks were being used for packaging rice, pea-nuts from United States, Europe, Malaysia, among other countries, saying that attested to the fact that Indian jute bags met the requirement of global consumers.

He said currently, jute products were being used in manufacturing shoes, bags, carpets, clothing which was fetching million of dollars as foreign exchange in India

Mr Abu-Bakari Saddique Boniface, a Deputy Minister of Industry lauded the delegates' initiative and said the proposal if implemented would not only reduce youth unemployment but would also earn some income to the country.

He assured the delegation that their proposal would receive the needed attention from the government. Mr Kaikhosrou K. Framji, India High Commissioner, who chaired the meeting said Indian jute industry has gone through tough times but it could boast of a wide range of its products and they were high demand world wide.