The Minister of Trades and Industry, Alan Kyerematen, says enhancing agricultural production is the surest way of reviving Ghana’s ailing economy.
He is hopeful that, with policies such as the 1D1F Enable Youth Initiative, government is on course to boost the economy through agriculture.
“Agriculture without industrialization is not sustainable. That is why we have been struggling with our agricultural sector for many years because we are unable to process what we process and produce. So the industrialization aspect of this program is going to further enhance and deepen agricultural productivity and that is very important for the industrialization of our country”, he stressed.
Alan Kyerematen was speaking at the official launch of 1D1F Enable Youth Initiative in Accra on Friday.
There, the Minister indicated that the programme would help create sustainable jobs and also enhance agricultural production to boost the country’s economy.
“It is going to bring our youth to support our country’s macro-stability effort. If we are able to replicate what we are doing with our youth-owned and managed companies, it means that, we will be able to reduce the amount of foreign exchange that we are currently spending on importing almost everything that we can produce.”
“At the same time, we are going to enhance our capacity to be able to export more to earn foreign exchange which is the only way to stabilize the local currency. If you are thinking in the long term of avoiding what we are going through today, it is through initiatives of this nature”, Alan Kyerematen emphasized.
He also revealed that the government’s newly launched 1D1F Enable Youth Initiative will tackle youth unemployment by creating 16,000 jobs for the youth in the country.
About 1.74 million (13.4 percent) of the total working population of 13 million in the age bracket of 15 years and above were unemployed in the first quarter of the year, a study conducted by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) revealed.
The high level of unemployment in the country has been described by many as a national security threat.
However, Mr Kyerematen said the unemployment in the country will be drastically reduced through the introduction of the 1D1F Enable Youth Initiative.
According to him, the program will directly create employment for 3,000 youth and over 16,000 indirect jobs for unemployed persons across the country.
“It is an uncontestable fact, that one of the problems confronting our country is how we deal with youth unemployment. This particular initiative will contribute to employing almost 3000 youth. It is also going to contribute indirectly to creating over 16, 000 jobs.”
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