CDH Global LLC, an American jewellery company, has expressed interest to set up a jewel manufacturing and training centre in the Sunyani West Municipality, under the government’s flagship One-District-One Factory (1D1F) programme.

Mr Sanford J. Haynes, the Chief Executive Officer of CDH said his company was working with its local partners, DDL Jewellery Designs and Training Institute, an Accra-based fashion design and training company, for the establishment of the factory at Dumasua in the Municipality

Interacting with Madam Justina Owusu-Banahene, the Bono Regional Minister during a courtesy call at her office in Sunyani, Mr Haynes said his company was expected to start operation of the factory by September this year.

The training centre would offer employable skills training to the youth and provide them with direct and indirect jobs.

He noted despite her numerous resources on the continent, many African countries lacked the required capacity to add value to the resources to create wealth for poverty reduction.

“We believe in Ghana, and we are going to support the country to change the narratives of Africa,” Mr Haynes said.

He said Ghana had enormous investment prospects and talents that remained untapped and expressed the hope the factory would open the area and create jobs for the people as well.

On her part, Madam Owusu-Banahene said the region was opened for investment but that notwithstanding, the background of investors and their track records would always be checked.

She said the region would not accept investments that would destroy the environment, particularly those that cause damage to water bodies and forest resources.

Madam Owusu-Banahene said issues relating to land acquisition in some of the communities remained uncertain and asked the company to be extra careful in that sense for the proposed project.

She directed the investors to engage the authorities of the Sunyani West Municipal Assembly and contact the 1D1F office set up at the Assembly for the necessary discussions to put things in the right context for smooth take-off eventually.

Mr Joseph Arthur, the CEO of DDL who led the investors said he had worked in the United States jewellery industry for close to 30 years, saying the industry had the potential to fetch and widen the nation’s foreign income earnings.

On completion, he said the skill training centre would have the capacity to train more than 2,500 youth every year and pave the way for students to go for exchange programmes in the United States of America, adding they had already procured about 10 acres of land for the project.