Accra, March 2, GNA - President John Agyekum Kufuor on Tuesday said government was expecting the delivery of 500 tractors within the next few months from India to boost the agricultural sector.

He said modernized agriculture was one of the five priority areas of the government whose development was expected to transform the rural areas and promote agro-based industries and generate employment. The four other priority areas are infrastructure, social services development with improvement in the education, health and energy sectors, good governance and private sector development.

President Kufuor announced this when delivering the keynote address at a two-day symposium organised by the Bank of Ghana (BOG) in Accra. The Symposium under the theme: "From Stabilisation to Growth" was to deliberate on building the structural foundations of stability and accelerated economic development.

It was also about the strategy and the challenge of making the transition from stabilisation to rapid growth; of how to consolidate the gains and engineer sustained GDP growth and in fundamental way how to catch up with the dynamic and growing emerging markets of the rest of the world.

President Kufuor said already with the distribution of improved planting materials, enhanced extension services, small scale irrigation, organized spraying and provision of appropriate inputs, including fertilizers as well as reasonable credit for farmers and marketers, the country's agricultural sector was gradually entering a golden age. He said this was evidenced by the availability of food throughout the year at reasonable prices.

President Kufuor said last year, the budget target of zero net domestic financing was exceeded with a net repayment of the domestic debt and this had pushed down the interest rates from 50 per cent when the government assumed power to 26 per cent currently.

He said this was encouraging the private sector to access bank loans and coupled with economic liberalization policies, were enabling the private sector to move into the growth points of the economy.

"Indeed, over the past two years, Government's policies have paid off in several ways and enabled the realization of a serious measure of stability.

"It is, therefore, important to capitalise on the results that we have achieved so far to move the economy forward and place the nation in a position to guarantee enhanced welfare of its citizens", he said.

President Kufuor said to sustain the achievements in the economy over the past three years all Ghanaians must have a vision of corporate Ghana for good living for all and sundry.

He gave the assurance that government was determined not to relapse during the election year but would continue to be disciplined in its fiscal and monetary policies to sustain the economy to grow.

President Kufuor challenged those, who criticized that the progress being made in the economy was not being felt by the average Ghanaian and said" all over the world, generation and distribution of wealth come mainly through investments.

"Especially when businessmen are enabled to access credit, they invest and thereby generate employment which put money in the pockets of ordinary citizens."

He said, "this reality calls for informed and hopeful patience because the process is inherently time-consuming. The important thing is to launch and sustain the process which is what the government is successfully doing currently".

Mrs Gloria Nikoi, Member of the Board of Directors of the BOG, who chaired the opening session, said Ghana with its tremendous human and material resources had experimented with several strategies for development and that she was optimistic that the economy would succeed with the prudent fiscal and monetary policies that had prepared for take-off.

Mrs Nikoi called for such symposia on the economy periodically to evaluate policies to be abreast with their implementation and impact on the people.