Economist Professor Peter Quartey has outlined some key sectors of the economy that government’s Economic Recovery Plan must fous on.
These sectors according to Prof Quartey include the Agriculture and Health sector.
His comment comes in the back of the effect of Covid-19 on businesses. Government as part of was to deal with the situation has announced some stimulus packages to help mitigate the impact on the economy.
Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta is also expected to lay before parliament an Economic Recovery Plan that will spell out how the government intends to deal with the situation.
Government officials and Ministers this week met to assess the impact of the virus on the various sectors of the economy and the proposed ways of dealing with them.
Sharing his views on how best the recovery plan can be executed and the sectors that need the most attention, Economist Professor Peter Quartey said more focus should be placed on the Agric and Health sector.
According to him, subsidising fertilisers for smallholder farmers will not help turn the economy around in a short period.
He stated that the country will need to invest in large scale commercial agriculture.
“At this point I expect us to invest large scale commercial agriculture, just subsidising fertilisers for smallholder farmers is not enough this is the time we have to look at large scale farming, few critical large scale farming will have to be supported then you look at certain critical sectors of the economy.”
Another sector Prof Quartey outlined as an important sector is the manufacturing especially the pharmaceutical industry.
“Some manufacturing especially the pharmaceutical companies otherwise…the recession is inevitable and might be severe but if you are able to invest strategically then we will manage the extent of the recession and turn the economy round in a very short time.”
Ms. Kosi Antwiwaa Yankey the Executive Director for the National Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI) says about 200,000 Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) will benefit from government’s GH¢600m stimulus package.
There has been concerns over how the distribution of the monies will be done and also which businesses will benefit.
Ms Yankey speaking at a press briefing said they will use the data available to share the money to these business and so far they are projecting that about 200,000 businesses will benefit from the package.
“There are three categories we are looking at, the micro which makes up about 80% of the population in terms of the sector. For the small, you have about 15% of the medium is about 1% of the sector. In view of that, we have looked at it an analyzed that about 200,000 businesses will benefit considering that the micro-businesses make up a huge chunk of the population, so we have done it in a way that it is representative of the entire sector”.
In a televised address to the country on March 27, 2020, this year, President Akufo-Addo announced a GH¢1.2 billion Coronavirus Alleviation Programme (CAP) as part of enhanced measures to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on households, contain disruption to economic activities and to rescue and revitalise industries.
