Ghana’s Gross Domestic Product growth last year stood at a provisional 6.3 per cent year-on-year, down from 8.1 per cent in 2017.
Government Statistician, Professor Samuel Kobina Annin who disclosed this in Accra when he released the provisional fourth quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) figures attributed the fall in the growth rate in 2018 to the fall in the growth rate in the oil and gas sector.
The growth rate in the oil and gas activities fell from 8.03 per cent in 2017 to 3.6 in 2018.
Prof Annin explained that the provisional GDP growth for 2018 was influenced by the industry, agriculture and the services sector.
“The industry sector recorded the highest growth rate of 10.6 per cent, followed by agriculture at 4.8 per cent and services sector at 2.7 per cent.
He said the growth recorded by industry was largely driven by the mining and quarrying sub-sectors, which recorded year-on-year growth rate of 23.3 per cent in 2018, while the water and sewerage sub-sectors recorded negative growth rate of 3.6 per cent.
Prof Annin explained that the crop sub-sector drove the growth in the agriculture sector, recording a year-on-year growth rate of 5.8 per cent.
Health and social work influenced the growth of the services sector, posting a year-on-year growth rate of 22.6 per cent.
The Government Statistician explained that the non-oil GDP growth rate increased from 4.6 per cent to 6.5 per cent in 2018.
“The increase in growth rate could be attributed to a 49 per cent growth rate in mining and quarrying activities (excluding oil and gas), information and communication and health and social work activities,” he said.
Prof Annin said the provisional constant annual GDP estimate including oil for 2018 stood at GHȻ154, 547.7 million, while the estimate for 2017 was GHȻ145, 438.2 million, which translates into a provisional annual oil and gas GDP growth rate of 6.3 per cent.
The provisional constant annual GDP estimate excluding oil for 2018 was GHȻ142, 867.2 million and the value recorded for 2017 stood at GHȻ134, 159.7 million and translates into a provisional annual non-oil GDP growth rate of 6.5 percent for 2018.
Highlighting on the fourth quarter GDP, Prof Annin said the growth rate for the last quarter of last year grew by 6.8 per cent compared to 5.5 recorded for the fourth quarter of 2017.
“The non-oil provisional fourth quarter real GDP grew by 8.4 year-on-year compared to 1.7 per cent recorded for the fourth quarter 2017,” Prof Annin said.
He said the constant GDP estimate including oil for the fourth quarter of last year stood at the GHȻ39, 473.2 million, while the estimate for fourth quarter was GHȻ36, 950.8 million and the constant GDP estimate excluding oil for fourth quarter of 2018 was GHȻ36, 093.9 million and the value recorded for fourth quarter for 2017 was GHȻc33, 309.8 million.
Prof Annin said the fourth quarter growth was largely influenced by the services sector which grew by 44.9 per cent, followed by industry at 33.7 per cent and agriculture at 21.4 per cent.
By Kingsley Asare
