Senior Minister, Mr. Yaw Osafo has said government has resolved to focus on manufacturing and production to augment the sector’s contribution to GDP.
He disclosed that sectors including agriculture and agribusiness, will as well attract the needed attention in order to drive the agenda of making Ghana a production-led economy.
Data from the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) show the manufacturing sub-sector, in 2017, recording the lowest growth rate of 3.7 percent while the agricultural sector chalked 8.4 percent growth.
The mining and quarrying sub-sector last year, recorded the highest year on year annual GDP growth rate of 46.7 percent.
“It is only higher manufacturing that will improve growth, create employment and add value to natural resources. The production sector is a great concern to government,” Mr Marfo told the Goldstreet Business on the sidelines of the 2018 Accountants’ Conference held in Accra, May 29-30, themed ‘Moving Management of the Economy from Taxation to Production’.
However, the Senior Minister maintained that the recent cut in electricity tariffs and other interventions, including the 2017 tax cuts, are some of the measures meant to ensure the growth of the manufacturing and production sectors.
“The agriculture sector grew fairly, last year, but a lot remains to be done in manufacturing and that is where government wants to shift focus to,” he emphasised.
Meanwhile, the former AGI president, Dr. James Asare-Adjei, expressed worry at government’s pace of implementing the stimulus package regime, describing it as not being expedited.
“As of now, we are rarely updated on what is currently happening with the package, in regard to how much is disbursed, how many industries have accessed the package and even how many have applied so far,” he said.
Dr. Asare-Adjei laments that the current 8.0 percent of tax payers in the formal sector of the economy are under constant pressure to finance government’s projects through their taxes.
“Ninety percent of the economy is still informal. That is why we have welcomed initiatives such as the TIN registration, the Ghana Card and other initiatives which are designed to integrate the informal sector into the tax net” he said.
By Wisdom Jonny-Nuekpe |goldstreetbusiness.com
