Ghana would reach decision point in the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative on Friday, February 22, Mr Osafo-Maafo, Minister of Finance, announced on Thursday.

Presenting the 2002 budget to Parliament he said the Government expected to save an additional 100 million dollars from debt service payments from the Initiative. The money would be geared towards domestic debt and poverty reduction spending plan.

Mr Osafo-Maafo said the additional relief would boost the government's efforts to raise cash to support and reduce the incidence of poverty and promote growth.

He said the government would continue to ensure that Ghana got the full benefits under the HIPC initiative. On cocoa prices, Mr Osafo-Maafo noted that the producer price was increased by 41 per cent from 4,384,000 cedis per metric ton to 6.2 million cedis or 274,000 per bag to 387,500 cedis.

He said 178.4 billion cedis was earmarked for the exercise on pests control project and cocoa diseases.

The Finance Minister said there was a special partnership between the government and the private sector under which, with the support of the Ministry for Private Sector Development, 10 small- and medium-scale fruit processing plants would be established.

Three tomato-processing plants as well as 10 small- and medium-scale brown sugar production plants would also be established.

Mr Osafo-Maafo said the Ministry would facilitate provision of land and machinery for salt production to increase the volume of production for export from the current 200,000-300,000 metric tons to about 600,000 metric tons.

On revenue, he said new revenue enhancing measures were introduced to improve on the efficiency of tax collecting agencies and minimise abuses of tax concessions, especially on operation in the Free Zones.