300 Villages to benefit from China-aided satellite TV project
Three hundred villages are set to benefit from a China-aided satellite TV Project.
The project is to be undertaken by the Ministry of Communications, with support from StarTimes.
It will be launched on September 26, 2018 at Akweibu, the first beneficiary village in the Greater Accra Region.
A release issued in Accra said the Chinese Ambassador-designate to Ghana, Mr Shi Ting Wang, and the Minister of Communications, Mrs Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, are expected to grace the launch.
As part of the package for the project, it said the public areas in the villages would have a bouquet of 20 channels for free and 20 households will be on a six-month offer to enjoy over 30 channels for free.
The statement said: “In line with the government’s commitment to bridge the digital gap between the rural and urban areas, the ‘300 village satellite TV project’ is expected to benefit 6,000 households in 300 villages nationwide.”
“The project is another giant step aimed at helping citizens access TV information on national and international events and programmes that would educate and inform them,” the release added.
It said that would also help increase their awareness and knowledge to improve their welfare.
Apart from the 6,000 households, the release said a number of public areas would also be connected with satellite television service composed of a satellite dish, a high definition set-top box and accessories, while 900 public institutions would be connected through a satellite projector TV system and 32-inch television sets.
StarTimes partnership
The release further indicated that the partnership with StarTimes formed part of the commitment of The People’s Republic of China to deepen its long-standing relationship with the governments of Africa.
At the opening ceremony of the Johannesburg Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation—a China-Africa Cooperation project, President Xi Jinping said the project would give access to satellite television to 10,000 villages in 25 African countries.
It said the President of the StarTimes Group, Mr Pang Xinxing, also stated that “the China government has entrusted the implementation of the access to satellite TV for 10,000 African villages project to StarTimes.
He said that would ensure that the African continent and media development progressed to the next level in digital television broadcasting.