Representatives of AGI, Ministry of Trade & Industry and Ghana Statistical Service launching the report
A new report by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has indicated that the services sector is still driving the country’s economy.
The Integrated Business Establishment Survey (IBES II), launched yesterday in Accra, indicated that almost 70 percent of revenue or outputs in the non-household economy were recorded in the services sector, adding that the financial and insurance sub-sector recorded the highest revenue in this category.
Industry came next after recording almost 29 percent of all the revenue or outputs in the non-household sub-sector.
The mining and quarrying sub-sector recorded the highest output in this sector.
The manufacturing sub-sector worriedly produced the lowest output in this sector.
The industrial agriculture sector also produced a meager 1 percent of the total output.
The report also revealed that over 70 percent of all the revenues generated were from establishments in the Greater Accra Region.
Baah Wadie, acting Government Statistician, noted that the revelation does not fall in line with the nation’s objective to decentralize.
Workers compensation
Regarding compensations to workers, the report showed that a total amount of GH¢30.4 billion was paid for labour.
Of this amount, over 94 percent was paid as salaries and wages to employees, about GH¢1 billion was paid by employers as social security contributions forming only 3.4 percent of the total amount.
The sector, which paid the most, was the industry sector, with the mining and quarrying sub-sector following suit.
Reactions
The Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), which responded to findings in the report, noted that the report painted a painful truth of the state of the Ghanaian economy, which is driven by the services sector instead of the industry sector.
“For a developing economy, this development is an anomaly. We should have an economy driven by industry instead of services and the government should do its best to help industry strive,” he noted.
Recommendations
The GSS recommended that government puts in place strategic measures to boost the industry sector.
They noted that the industry sector has forward and backward linkages in that if the industry sector thrives, the agricultural sector would thrive and the services sector would follow as well.
They called on government to make deliberate attempts to provide suitable business environments in the other regions of Ghana to make sure that the revenue distribution output is fairly distributed among all regions.