ISSER Director, Prof Peter Quartey spoke to the Business and Financial Times for an article on the impact of coronavirus on Ghana’s manufacturing sector.
In the article published on 28 September 2020, Prof Quartey said the manufacturing sector was not spared the ravages of the coronavirus; new data showed the sector has experienced its biggest contraction in more than six years.
GDP figures released by the Ghana Statistical (GSS) indicate the sector contracted 14.3 percent in the second quarter of 2020, making it the worst hit industrial sector, its worst performance since the first quarter of 2014 when it contracted 27.7 percent, the article said.
Prof Quartey comments: “During the lockdown and the restrictions, there wasn’t much production – demand had gone down, getting raw materials became a problem, among other challenges. So putting the situation in that context will help us understand why growth was significantly affected.”
To avert further decline and ramp up growth, he highlights a number of measures. The measures include: intensification of the campaign to promote consumption of made in Ghana products, integrating the agriculture and manufacturing sectors, among others.
He points out: “…we must promote the consumption of made in Ghana goods… the demand for locally-made products is very critical in stimulating the manufacturing sector in the country.”
He adds: “…also, we must link the agriculture sector to the manufacturing sector so that whatever is coming from the agriculture sector, the manufacturing sector will use it as raw materials and vice-versa.”
“And we saw the importance of that one during the lockdown. If we had a very well-integrated system between agriculture and manufacturing, we wouldn’t have waited for borders to open for us to import raw materials,” he said.
Read the full article online.