Ghana’s economy shrinks by $1.8billion

• Posted on October 6, 2016
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

The size of the Ghanaian economy (including oil) shrunk from US$38.5 billion recorded in 2014 to US$36.7 billion in 2015, a difference of $1.8billion, the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has disclosed.

The GSS further stated that Ghana’s economy grew by 2.5 per cent during the second quarter of 2016 compared with 3.8 per cent registered during the same period last year.

Per these results, economies such as South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, Algeria, Angola, Morocco, Libya, Sudan, Kenya, Ethiopia and Tunisia have economies bigger than that of Ghana.

What was of great concern was that the industrial sector registered -5.0 per cent for the first six months of this year.

Non-oil GDP was however higher at 6.2 per cent during the first six months of the year compared with 4.4 percent during the same period last year.

The revised annual growth rate for 2015 also stood unchanged at 3.9 percent, the GSS said, noting that per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) went up to US$5,014 as against US$4,192 registered in 2014.

The services sector constituted 53.2 per cent of the economy in 2015 whilst industry and agriculture sectors constituted 26.6 per cent and 20.2 per cent respectively.

Overall, agriculture grew by 2.5 per cent compared with the April 2016 estimate of 2.4 per cent whilst industry and services grew by 1.0 and 5.2 per cent respectively, as against the April revision of 1.2 and 5.7 per cent.

The GSS used a US dollar rate of GH¢3.78 in 2015 as against US$2.94 in 2014 whilst the Ghanaian population stood at 27.67 million in 2015 as against 27.04 million in 2014.

The provisional 2016 quarter two GDP estimate including oil at current prices was GH?38.16 billion. The estimate for the second quarter of 2015 was GH?32.28 billion.

For the sectors, the agriculture sector grew at a rate of 4.1 per cent for the second quarter of 2016. The livestock sub-sector recorded the highest year-on-year growth rate of 6.8 per cent while the forestry and logging sub-sector recorded the lowest growth rate of 1.2 per cent.

For the sub sectors, the electricity sub-sector recorded the highest year-on-year quarterly GDP growth rate of 11.7 per cent for quarter two of 2016, while the Mining & Quarrying sub-sector recorded the lowest rate of-29 percent.

For the second quarter of 2016, the services sector recorded a year-on-year quarterly GDP growth rate of 6.0 per cent.

The hotel and restaurants sub-sector recorded the highest year-on-year quarterly GDP growth rate of 11.6 percent while the Community, Social and Other Personal Activities sub-sector recorded the lowest growth rate of 2.0 percent.

By Augustine Amoah