The economy is set to take off this year with widespread projects and social services investment that will lead to a shared growth among Ghanaians, the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Dr Kwabena Duffuor, has stated. The minister told the Daily Graphic in an exclusive New Year interview that 2011 would see emphasis on capital expenditure and the elimination of unproductive expenditures. He said this year, it was the commitment of the government to take further steps to put the economy onto a high and permanent growth path as envisioned in the 'Better Ghana Agenda'. Consequently, within the development budget, the government would prioritise infrastructure investments and enhance execution rate of both domestically and foreign-financed development budget, Dr Duffuor said. He told the Daily Graphic that the government would deepen focus on addressing all constraints that prevented the economy from exploiting its full potential, saying particular attention would be paid to further improve the business environment and increase investment in the key priority social and economic sectors such as health, education, agriculture and critical physical infrastructure, especially roads, railways, and port modernisation. The government would scale up the implementation of socio-economic programmes for the marginalised areas to complement the investment in social and economic sectors and also promote equitable regional development for national unity. He said resources dedicated for that programme would, therefore, go into financing agriculture and livestock development, fertiliser subsidisation, education, energy, health, rail transport, roads and water supply. Under agriculture for instance, a number of programmes would be continued to ensure that the sector was well modernised. The investments would, include fertiliser subsidies for increased yield and the establishment of more agricultural mechanisation service centres to achieve one per district for the remaining 86 districts, Dr Duffuor said. "Further, about a 100,000 metric tonnes capacity rice milling machine will be acquired to assist paddy rice farmers in the three northern regions in rice milling," he said. The minister said the government would also start the construction of the first phase of the Accra Plains Irrigation Project. The project will cover an area of about 5,000 hectares and is expected to promote double cropping of vegetables and cereals. The finance minister added that Elmina in the Central Region would also have a fish processing plant to provide facilities for processing, packaging and marketing of fish and fish products in the fishing community. In addition, he said, about 5,000 household poultry would be supported with 100,000 brooded cockerels under the National Cockerel Programme to enhance their capacity to produce more meat to reduce the nation's meat deficit and also increase incomes of farmers. With that foundation well laid, the government could then continue to pursue the Youth in Agriculture Programme in the areas of block farming, livestock, fisheries and agribusiness development to increase production of crops, livestock and fish, as well as generate employment for the youth. The Cocoa Farmers' Pension Scheme would also start in earnest this year, Dr Duffuor said. Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which measures economic growth; is projected to reach 12.4 per cent at the end of 2011. "Growth is only as important as what it enables us to do and be. The current main challenge is to harness economic growth to consolidate the recent gains in making development more inclusive," Dr. Duffuor told the Daily Graphic. "To attain this high level of growth, the government will implement in 2011 measures guided by the Medium Term Development Framework underpinned by a stable macro-economic environment and structural reforms aimed at raising productivity and improving the business climate," the finance minister told the Daily Graphic. Above all, the implementation of prudent fiscal policy measures would be sustained as a critical component of attaining the growth target set for 2011 and expanding opportunities for all Ghanaians. To this end, the overriding fiscal policy thrust will be to maintain a stronger revenue effort of about 25 per cent and 27 per cent of GDP, largely achievable through targeted tax reforms; and secondly to contain growth of total expenditure, while shifting composition of expenditure from recurrent to capital expenditure and eliminating unproductive expenditures," Dr Duffuor explained.