By Juliet ETEFE ([email protected])
The country’s economic outlook could outpace present industrial growth levels if government expedites implementation of its Big Push agenda, Government Statistician Dr. Alhassan Iddrisu has indicated.
Speaking during the 2025 first-quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) estimates’ release, Dr. Iddrisu indicated that while the economy expanded by 5.3 percent in Q1 2025 – a gain from 4.9 percent in the same period of 2024 – the industrial sector only recorded modest growth of 3.4 percent.
He argued that targetted investment in infrastructure such as power, road and digital systems under the Big Push agenda could unlock significantly higher growth, especially in industry.
“Industry growth is slowing down. Industry grew by 3.4 percent in 2025Q1 compared to 6.7 percent in 2024 Q1. The oil and gas sector declined sharply by 22.1 percent, dragging the industrial sector down. But manufacturing was strong, growing by 6.6 percent and showing that local production is holding up.
“Accelerating Big Push investments in power, roads and digital infrastructure could support private sector expansion and enhance regional competitiveness, thereby unlocking industrial growth beyond the 3.4 percent growth,” Dr. Iddrisu noted.
The ‘Big Push’ agenda, a government strategy anchored on heavy public investment in infrastructure, is seen as key to unlocking bottlenecks and spurring job creation and competitiveness.
Broad-based recovery
The first quarter GDP performance reveals broad-based growth across most sectors. The nominal GDP stood at GH¢375.2billion, up from GH¢290.7billion in Q1 2024. Real GDP reached GH¢53.5billion compared to GH¢50.8billion a year earlier. Importantly, non-oil real GDP grew by 6.8 percent – significantly outpacing overall growth and underscoring the non-oil economy’s increasing resilience.
Agriculture, once again, showed strong recovery by growing 6.6 percent – a significant jump from 2.4 percent in Q1 2024 – with fishing leading at 16.4 percent growth, the highest since 2022. Cocoa production also expanded for the first time since Q3 2023, while crops remained a strong driver.
In the services sector, which remains the economy’s dominant component at 46.8 percent of GDP, growth reached 5.9 percent. The information and communication sub-sector led with an impressive 13.1 percent expansion, followed by finance and insurance (9.3%) and transport and storage (8.6%).
Despite an overall positive performance, the industrial sector underperformed relative to the previous year. While manufacturing grew by 6.6 percent, the sharp contraction in oil and gas activities dragged overall industry growth down to 3.4 percent from 6.7 percent in Q1 2024.
“Mining & Quarrying grew modestly by 1.4 percent, but Oil & Gas declined sharply (-22.1%),” the data stated.
Gold Board
As such, Dr. Iddrisu further recommended that scaling up Gold Board activities could stabilise earnings and broaden impact beyond extraction.
The Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) is Ghana’s sole authority with exclusive rights to buy, sell, weigh, grade, assay, value and export gold and other precious minerals.
Businesses and households
The Ghana Statistical Service also highlighted recommendations and opportunities that exist for households and businesses to benefit from the expansion.
For businesses, the government statistician noted that: “With transport, ICT and trade services expanding, businesses in logistics, delivery, customer serviceand manufacturing should adjust working models to 24-hour cycles where feasible.
“Manufacturing grew by 6.6 percent despite oil sector decline. SMEs should leverage infrastructure including roads, irrigation and storage facilities to source local inputs and access markets under the AfCFTA and Big Push programme.”
Similarly for households, he said: “With agriculture growing at 6.6 percent and the strong momentum in crops and fishing, households can benefit from government input subsidies and training under the Agriculture for Transformation Programme to support food security and income. Households could also benefit from the resulting decline of inflation.
“Services grew by 5.9 percent, particularly in ICT (13.1%), trade (7.1%) and transport (8.6%). Households should explore night-shift opportunities under the 24-Hour Economy initiative in an expanding service economy.”
