In order for the country’s economy to attain pre-COVID-19 status and achieve subsequent growth, government should focus heavily on the agriculture and trade sectors.

This is according to an economist with Databank, Courage Martey.

Latest provisional figures released by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) covering economic activity for the first 3 quarters of 2020 show that while the industry and services sectors of the economy both contracted by 5.1 percent and 1.1% respectively, the agriculture sector on the other hand recorded the highest growth of 8.3% in the 3rd quarter.

“If the government wants to continue with the recovery we are seeing and strengthen it in 2021, focus has to be on certain aspects of the economy. One of such aspects is agriculture which showed a lot of resilience during the 2020 uncertainty. We believe that government interventions in the area of planting for food and jobs and rearing for food and jobs was a very important support for crops and livestock, and we think that continued intervention in that side of the economy will help agriculture provide the economy with the needed growth, so government must continue to target critical sectors under agriculture”.

In terms of trade, Mr. Martey stressed the need for government to increase its investment in the local economy.

“Then of course trade is another sector that helps economic growth a lot and government can use its purchasing power to support domestically produced goods within the domestic economy”.