By Stephen Asante, GNA
Kumasi, Sept. 11, Ghana – The West African
sub-Region has been advised to work assiduously to create more business
opportunities along the poultry industry value chain.
It is important that stakeholders worked
together to overcome impediments militating against the sub-Region’s growth in
the industry.
Mr. Osei Assibey-Antwi, Mayor of the Kumasi
Metropolitan Assembly (KMA), indicated that: “There is huge market for
poultry products on the local scene, which could be exploited in the interest
of all given the requisite investment to boost production in the varied sectors
of the industry.”
In an interview with the Ghana News Agency
(GNA), Kumasi, the Mayor said the various governments ought to encourage
trading activities amongst the comity of nations for job and wealth creation.
This was on the sideline of a visit by a
high-powered Burkinabe delegation to the Feedmill Production Unit of Boris ‘B’
Farms and Veterinary Supplies Company Limited.
The 23-member delegation, led by Mr. Roland
Pierre Beouinde, the Mayor of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, was on a three-day
visit to Kumasi, Ghana’s second-largest city, to strengthen bi-lateral ties.
The Feedmill Production Unit exports about
17, 000 tons of the Company’s feedmill annually to some neighbouring countries,
including Togo and Cote d’Ivoire.
Mr. Assibey-Antwi said the government was
doing its best to support key players in the poultry industry in their
activities for increased produtivity.
This is to empower Ghanaian farmers to be
able “to produce locally what we eat in order to reduce food imports
substantially”.
Mr. Beouinde, giving the state of his
country’s poultry industry, noted that it contributed about 28.6 per cent to
the Burkina Faso agro Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
“There are investment opportunities in
terms of modernizing the industry, and we look forward to working with our
Ghanaian counterparts for development,” he told the GNA.
Burkina Faso, he said, had on year-on-year
basis, enhanced its production in guinea fowl, duck, turkey and pigeon, as well
as cotton, and vegetables, of which the country is the second-largest producer
in the sub-Region.
GNA
