Economy grows 7.2% in 3rd quarter

Ghana's economy grew by 7.2 per cent year-on-year in the third quarter (Q3) of this year compared to the 2.2 per cent recorded in the same period last year, the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has revealed.

The growth is the strongest since pre-pandemic levels, with the last comparable performance being a 9.1 per cent expansion in the second quarter of 2019.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, the country’s real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increased by 1.7 per cent in Q3 of 2024 compared to the second quarter, slightly higher than the 1.6 per cent recorded in Q2 of 2024.  

Mining and quarrying, information and communications, crops, construction and manufacturing witnessed enormous activities that pushed growth in productivity in the economy in the third quarter of the year over the same period last year.

However, fishing, water and sewerage and other personal service activities were among the sub-sectors that contracted during the period, indicating lingering challenges in these areas.

The provisional real quarterly GDP (QGDP) growth rate, including oil and gas (overall GDP), is 7.2 per cent (year-on-year) in the third quarter of 2024.

The growth rate recorded in the same quarter of 2023 was 2.2 per cent.

The GDP growth rate without oil and gas (non-oil GDP) for the third quarter of 2024 is 7.7 per cent, compared to the 2.4 per cent recorded in the same period in 2023.

Announcing the 2024 third quarter GDP in Accra yesterday, the Government Statistician, Prof. Samuel Kobina Annim, said the services sector continued to be the largest sector of the Ghanaian economy in the third quarter of 2024, with a share of 42.9 per cent of GDP at basic prices.

He said the GDP shares of industry and agriculture were 32.6 per cent and 24.5 per cent respectively.

Prof. Annim said the industrial sector recorded the highest real GDP growth of 10.4 per cent (year-on-year), followed by the services sector at 6.4 per cent, while the agriculture sector recorded a growth rate of 3.2 per cent.

“The breakdown of sector contributions to total year-on-year real GDP growth in percentage points that the industry sector made the highest contribution with 3.4 percentage points, followed by services with 2.8 percentage points, and then agriculture with 0.6 percentage points,” he said.

He said the sub-sector which expanded the most was crops and the sub-sector which contracted the most was fishing.

“The crops expanded by 5.9 per cent (year-on-year) and 1.3 per cent (quarter-on-quarter seasonally adjusted) in the third quarter of 2024 compared to the fishing sub-sector which had a growth rate of -21.7 per cent (year-on-year) and -6.5 per cent (quarter-on-quarter seasonally adjusted),” the Government Statistician said.

Mining & quarrying

Prof. Annim stated that the sub-sector with the most expansion was mining and quarrying, while the sub-sector which contracted the most was water and sewerage.

“The mining and quarrying sub-sector expanded by 17.1 per cent (year-on-year) and 4.1 per cent (quarter-on-quarter seasonally adjusted) in quarter three of 2024 compared to the water and sewerage sub-sector which had a growth rate of -3.0 per cent (year-on-year) and -1.0 per cent (quarter-on-quarter seasonally adjusted).

“The sub-sector which expanded the most was information and communications, and the sub-sector which contracted the most was other personal service activities,” he said.

Information, communication

The Government Statistician stated that information and communications expanded by 17.1 per cent (year-on-year) and 4.1 per cent (quarter-on-quarter seasonally adjusted) in the third quarter of 2024 compared to the other personal service activities sub-sector which had a growth rate of -3.4 per cent (year-on-year) and -0.8 per cent (quarter-on-quarter seasonally adjusted).

He said the growth of 7.2 per cent in real GDP by the expenditure approach to measuring GDP was driven by gross capital formation (24.5 per cent), the government's final consumption expenditure (3.4 per cent), and household final consumption expenditure (three per cent) in the period under review.