ABSTRACT
Since the 1950's several manufacturing industries have become established: they include cement, textiles, timber and plywood, soap and margarine, tobacco and cigarettes, rubber and plastics, brewing and soft-drink manufacture, in addition to the usual processing of agricultural products such as cotton ginning, oil-seed pressing and cocoa preparation. Timber is the second most valuable export, most of it coming from western Ashanti and the south-western area of high rainfall, and being exported via Takoradi where new timber wharves were opened in 1953. Mills for extracting palm-oil and grinding corn, factories for preparing timber and metal working, and various repair trades have been established in the main towns for many years. Today more than 25,000 people work in industrial establishments employing ten or more persons; taking smaller establishments into account, more people are employed in manufacturing than mining.
