Producing and marketing made in Ghana goods in the face of trade liberalisation: a case study into selected clothing and footwear industries

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Date
2001-01-26
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Liberalisation is a global policy that every nation cannot ignore. It aims to assist local industries to be able to compete on the global market. A look at the global economy reveals that market oriented thinking has become the order of the day. The Eastern European economic power has resulted from their being able to organise their internal and external trade to increase the net worth of their manufacturing sector through trade reforms. Ghana, recognising the advantages that can be derived from increased participation in external trade adopted a liberal trade policy from 1983. The purpose was to allow local and foreign firms to compete so that over protected and inefficiently operating manufacturing firms could adjust and also become efficient. However, due to weaknesses in Ghana’s supply capabilities and industrial structure, there has been an excessive influx of new and used clothing and footwear into the country to satisfy existing and latent demand. This study has been purported to investigate into the factors militating against the growth and survival of the clothing and footwear sub-sector in the face of trade liberalisation. The main objective of the study was to assess the impact of trade liberalisation on local production and marketing of clothing and footwear and hence suggest ways of improving production and sales in the sub-sector. The methods used in data collection for this study include interviews, questionnaires, policy documents, textbooks and information from the journals. Findings from the survey conducted on a sample of the producers in both industries revealed that poor quality products and the inefficient use of marketing tools like the 4- P’s, market segmentation and targeting, product positioning are some of the reasons behind the poor performance in the sub-sectors. Others are inadequate supply of raw material, negative consumer perception, production bottlenecks like use of obsolete machinery and technology, government policy on taxation are the main factors accounting for the low market share and growth of local clothing and footwear industries. Feasible recommendations to address the problems identified have been made with a view to improving the state of affairs in the sub-sectors.
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A thesis submitted to the Department of Industrial Management,Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology Kumasi, in partial fulfillment of the requirement of the award of M.A Degree in Industrial Management, 2001
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