This was announced by President of the republic, H.E Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo, when he officially launched the initiative and broke grounds, to commence construction of the Ekumfi Fruits Processing Company, first factory to be constructed under the flagship policy by the NPP government.  

The “one district one factory” policy was instituted by the Akufo Addo administration to address the slow economic growth at the district level. The initiative aims to achieve this through a massive private sector led nationwide industrialization drive, which will equip and empower communities to utilize their local resources in manufacturing products that are in high demand both locally and internationally.

 
The project, when fully realized, will allow the country to reap the rewards of the industrialization, increase agricultural and manufacturing output, reduce reliance on imports and increase food availability. The project is also expected to generate thousands of jobs per district by end of 2020.

 
Speaking at the inaugural ceremony, President Akuffo Addo said that, the construction of the pineapple factory in the area is in fulfillment of the promise he made to the people of Ekumfi in run up to the 2016 elections, to set up a pineapple processing factory to process and add value to the quantum of pineapples that are cultivated in the area.

The factory is projected to process about eight tons of fruit daily and over 250,000 tons annually. It is also expected to create employment for 250 factory hands and create approximately 5000 indirect jobs for the people.

According to the President, a programmed implementation framework which set the modalities of implementation has also been designed, adding that the technical support group for the programme has so far reviewed over 330 business plans of which 59% are from manufacturing sector whiles 33% are from the agro-business sector.

He said, government, in order to ensure success of the initiative, has committed 100 million US dollars as equity or in-kind to ensure the establishment of the factories. He added that, over 340 million dollars has been leveraged from some local banks including the Ghana Commercial Bank (GCB), National Investment Bank (NIB), Fidelity Bank, Exim Bank and the Universal Merchant Bank (UMB) to help support the project.

He further revealed that, the government in collaboration with the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), has also arranged for the supply of credit facilities of about 2 billion dollars to provide equipment, machinery and other facilities from China to support the programme. 

 
The President, in view of this, was optimistic that the programme was destined to succeed and thus appealed to all Ghanaians to cooperate fully to ensure its total success.