The country’s economy has seen an impressive growth in second-quarter of the year, as figures released by the Ghana Statistical Service show it grew by 4.8 percent; thereby minimising growth concerns for the year amid a challenging economic environment.
Per the data, this represents an increase from 3.4 percent during the first quarter and is a 0.6 percentage point higher than the same period in 2021 at 4.2 percent.
The services sector recorded the highest growth rate of 5.2 percent, followed by the agriculture sector with a growth of 4.6 percent and the industry sector with a 4.4 percent.
In absolute terms, the real GDP – including oil and gas – estimated for second-quarter 2022 was GH¢41.21billion compared to GH¢39.3billion in 2nd-quarter 2021. Worth noting is the decline in real GDP (in values) from first-quarter 2022’s GH¢46.83billion.
The services sector continues to be the largest sector of the Ghanaian economy with a share of 45.8 percent of GDP at basic prices. The GDP share of industry and agriculture were 32.1 percent and 22.1 percent respectively.
Quarterly growth
The agriculture sector’s quarterly seasonally adjusted growth rates decreased from 1.5 percent in the first quarter of 2022 to 1 percent in the second quarter. From 4.7 percent in the first quarter of 2022 to 1.7 percent in the second quarter, the fishing subsector saw a fall of 3 percentage points. The crops and cocoa subsectors saw a slowdown in growth, going from 1.3 percent in the first quarter of 2022 to 1 percent.
Growth in the livestock subsector fell slightly, from 1.3 percent in the first quarter of 2022 to 1.2 percent. In the second quarter of 2022, the forestry and logging subsector experienced a 0.1 percent rate of contraction.
Manufacturing increased by 1.8 percent in the second quarter compared to a growth of 0.6 percent in the first quarter. The mining and quarrying sub-sector increased from -0.7 percent in the first quarter to 1 percent.
In comparison to the -0.6 percent reported in the first quarter of 2022, the construction sub-sector saw growth of 0.1 percent in the second quarter. However, there was contraction in the following sectors: electricity (-0.5 percent); and water supply, sewerage, waste management, and remediation activities (-0.6 percent).
Health and social work activities and education subsectors in the services sector saw growth rates of 3.3 and 3.1 percent in the second quarter of 2022, compared to 1.3 and 1.1 percent in the first quarter respectively. Compared to growth of 6 percent in the first quarter of 2022, the information and communication sub-sector saw a decline to 2.6 percent in the second quarter.
