THE MARKET Women's Association of Ghana (MWAG) has called on the Ministry of Trade and Industry to intervene in the price difference between the local textiles and imported textiles.

According to the women, 12-yards of local textile costs ?385,000 which is unjustifiable as compared to 12 yards of imported textile that costs only ? 125,000 and is of better quality than the locally manufactured textiles.

Speaking in an interview with the market women, they said that Ghanaian textiles design owners who send their registered designs to local textiles manufacturing companies for printing, are also being systematically pushed out of business due to high cost of production.

They said formerly, the price of the textiles was determined by the Price and Income Board. Imitators in the textiles production also send the stolen designs to the neighbouring countries for printing and then import them into the country at a far cheaper rate, and as a result, most of the importers are able to smuggle textiles into the country.

As a means to avert the illegal practice of imitators within the textiles production and distribution business in the country so as to save our local textiles manufacturing companies, the president of MWAG and an Accra based textiles dealer, Madam Mateki Broadbase have also called on the government to ban the importation of illegally stolen java and fancy designs which are already registered with the Registrar General's department to save the country from losing revenue.

The restriction, according to Madam Mateki, will also go a long way to stop the illegal activities of these imitators within the textiles production and distribution business, who send stolen textiles designs from Ghana for printing overseas to the detriment of the Ghanaian registered textile design owners.

She said many a time, the stolen designs that are printed outside and later imported into the country are all the time of better quality as compared to those printed by our local textiles companies.

"The non-payment of Value Added Tax on the imitation java and fancy cloths that are smuggled into the country is therefore making the nation lose tremendous revenue," she pointed out.

Madam Mateki appealed to the security personnel at the country's entry points to be extra vigilant and to arrest those who have been bringing in the illegally printed imitation java and fancy prints through the blind side of the customs check points. The police she pleaded, must also assist in arresting all those who are dealing in the sale of the stolen designs when brought to their notice.