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Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has said government's request for the local production of mass personal protective equipment (PPEs) to aid the fight against COVID-19 demonstrates government’s commitment towards promoting local industries.

Tens of thousands of government-ordered PPEs such as face masks, medical scrubs and medical gowns are being produced locally by some garment manufacturing companies.

The Vice President on Friday toured three of the companies producing the PPEs namely: Dignity DTRT, Sleek Garments and Cadling Fashion.

Speaking during the tour, Dr. Bawumia, who was accompanied by the Minister of Trade and Industry, Alan Kyerematen, said that government is committed to supporting the growth of local industries hence its decision to order the local production of PPEs to support growing demands for them following the Coronavirus crisis.

"As you know, we are dealing with the Coronavirus pandemic and one of the challenges we have in this country and across all countries has been how to protect our front line health workers. There is a global demand, whether you are talking about the UK or the US, there is a shortage of personal protective equipment, or PPEs.

"We have been looking at how to get these PPEs to our health workers because we don’t want them, in the process of saving our lives, to also lose their lives so we were looking at how to do it. You know, we have a real champion of Ghanaian industries in the person of the Minister for Trade and Industry. He said that we should look at producing these PPEs in the country. We discussed it at Cabinet and it was adopted very quickly."