Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has said the 2018 Budget and Economic Policy Statement would focus on implementing an Agricultural Marshall Plan that would complement and enhance the Planting for Food and Jobs initiative.

He said the Marshall Plan would ramp up the investments made in the “Planting for Food and Jobs” programme and make agriculture more profitable.
“Agriculture will be a major source of well paid jobs, which will lift the majority of the people from poverty and create wealth for all,” he said.

Vice President Bawumia said this at the opening of an International Conference on the Political Economy of Economic Transformation, in Accra.

He said the Marshall Plan would transform the structure of the Ghanaian economy through aggressive industrialisation under the programmes: Industrialisation Stimulus Programme and Value Addition to Agricultural Produce under the District Industrialisation Programme.

Under the Plan, he said, the Government would abolish duties on agricultural products, processing equipment and machinery.

It would also support agribusiness start-ups, finance farming and agribusinesses, open up food basket in the northern parts of the country and Afram Plains, provide technical assistance and tax incentives, irrigation infrastructure and launch pension scheme for cocoa farmers.

In October this year, Vice President Bawumia said, Government would launch the National Digital Addressing System, which would use the Global Positioning System (GPS) technology, to track the location of every citizen in the country.

“We have to get it done if we want to transform the economy and also ensure the interoperability of the payment system for financial inclusion” he added.