By Juliet ETEFE ([email protected])
The economy has expanded by 5.3 percent in first quarter-2025, up from 4.9 percent recorded in the same period of 2024 according to provisional figures released by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS).
“Real GDP for 2025 Q1 was GH¢53.5bn, up from GH¢50.8bn recorded in 2024 Q1.The 2025 Q1 real GDP represents a growth rate of 5.3%, up from 4.9% in same period in 2024, despite the ongoing trade wars and global uncertainty,” Government Statistician, Alhassan Iddrisu noted in a press briefing in Accra.
This growth reflects a strong performance in key sectors of the economy, with the agriculture sector emerging as fastest-growing while services remained the dominant contributor to GDP.
According to GSS, the main drivers of Q1 2025 growth were crops, information and communication, manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles, transport & storage and finance and insurance. Collectively, these sectors accounted for approximately 84.5 percent of total GDP growth.
However, some sub-sectors contracted during the quarter. These include public administration, defence & social security, education, water supply, sewerage, waste management & remediation and forestry & logging.
Non-oil GDP
The GSS noted that non-oil GDP grew by 6.8 percent year-on-year in Q1 2025 compared to 4.3 percent in Q1 2024, highlighting stronger growth in the economy’s non-extractive sectors.
“Non-Oil Real GDP was GH¢51.4bn, up from GH¢48.2bn recorded in 2024 Q1,” he added.
Sectoral performance
Services remained the economy’s largest sector, contributing 46.8 percent to GDP at basic prices. It was followed by industry at 29.7 percent and agriculture at 23.5 percent.
In terms of real GDP growth, agriculture led with a 6.6 percent year-on-year expansion driven largely by strong growth in the fishing (16.4%) and crops (6.7%) sub-sectors. The services sector grew by 5.9 percent while industry recorded a more modest growth of 3.4 percent.
Quarter-on-quarter, agriculture grew by 1.7 percent, services by 1.5 percent and industry by 0.9 percent.
Agriculture sub-sector
Within agriculture, fishing was the fastest-growing sub-sector – expanding by 16.4 percent year-on-year and 3.2 percent quarter-on-quarter (seasonally adjusted). Crops, which include cocoa, grew by 6.7 percent while livestock recorded a growth of 5.6 percent. On the other hand, forestry and logging contracted by 2.5 percent year-on-year and 0.6 percent quarter-on-quarter.
Industry sub-sector
In the industry sector, manufacturing showed the strongest performance with a 6.6 percent year-on-year growth and 1.9 percent quarter-on-quarter. Meanwhile, the oil and gas component of mining and quarrying contracted sharply by 22.1 percent, reflecting a significant drop in oil production. The overall mining and quarrying sub-sector still posted a marginal 1.4 percent growth, thanks to improved gold production.
The water supply, sewerage, waste management and remediation sub-sector also declined by 3.7 percent year-on-year and 0.7 percent on a quarterly basis.
Services sub-sector
The information and communication sub-sector led growth in the services sector with a robust 13.1 percent year-on-year increase and 3.1 percent quarterly growth. Other strong performers included finance & insurance and wholesale & retail trade.
Conversely, the public administration, defence and social security sub-sector contracted by 4.2 percent year-on-year and 0.9 percent quarter-on-quarter, the highest decline in the services segment.
The next GDP release is scheduled for September 10, 2025 and is expected to provide revised data and insights for Q2 2025.
