support the development of marketable value-added agricultural products capable of competing on the domestic, regional and the global market. • Service Sector Development Goal To develop a competitive high value-added services sector, to generate employment and serve as an engine for accelerated development and economic growth with the potential to develop into a regional business-services and ICT hub for the ECOWAS sub-region and beyond. The Government is fully aware that Ghana’s domestic market is far too small and that for Ghana to grow and accelerate its development process, it must export. The goal is to develop the services sector as a business hub to produce and export its services into the sub-region and beyond is a key priority area of the country’s socio-economic development programme • Industrial Sector Development Goal To develop a viable knowledge-based ICT production and development industry, a vibrant cottage industry and a mass-consumer products light industry, capable of generating economic growth and employment and producing goods for the domestic market and for export into the sub-regions and beyond. To increase the efficiency of the operations of the industrial sector to improve on the range of products produced to enable the sector make an increasing contribution to export earnings and supply the domestic market at competitive prices. To encourage the conversion of agricultural commodities (especially perishable food items) into easily storable products (existing and new products) as manufacturing sector’s contribution to stable food prices, enhanced farm prices and farm revenues, and to national food security The Goal to Develop Ghana’s ICT Sector and Use ICTs as a Broad-Based Enabler of Development Goals The Government as part of this Policy Statement is guided by the principle that if Ghana is to take full advantage of the opportunities of the information age and develop a vibrant multi-sectorial information and knowledge economy, it should not as a nation be just a consumer of ICT goods and services but also a producer and developer of the technology. The Government believes that development of a local ICT production industry and service sector is as equally important as the deployment, exploitation and utilization of the technology to support the activities of various sectors of the economy and society. Ghana, as part of its ICT4AD programmes shall be pursuing a policy that lays emphasis on both ICT Exploitation and Production involving: the utilization and exploitation of ICTs to support the delivery of government services and the activities of various sectors of the economy as well as the production, development and delivery of ICT products and services ---- i.e. towards the development and promotion of an ICT industry and services sector. These policy provisions will be implemented within five 4-year rolling plans over the next 20 years --with the 1st, 2nd and 3rd plans laying emphasis on the exploitation and utilization of ICT products and 27