Economy expands: Expands from GH₵ 300bn in 2018 to GH₵349bn in 2019

Ghana has maintained its position as the second biggest economy in West Africa after Nigeria.

This was after the size of the economy was valued at GH¢349.48 billion ($66.9 billion) as of December 2019, using an exchange rate of GH¢5.2 to the dollar.

This is compared with the previous year’s figure of GH¢300.6 billion ($65.56 billion), the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has revealed.

The GSS stated that provisional GDP estimates for 2019 showed a growth rate of 6.5 per cent compared to 6.3 per cent in 2018.

Per capita income

The per capita income, measured by the average income earned per person in a specified year, was GH¢11, 541 or equivalent of $2,212 in the year under review.

Non-oil GDP

Regarding the non-oil GDP, which is the size of the economy minus the contribution of oil, the figure stood at GH¢334.6 billion as of December, 2019, an improvement on the 2018 value of GH¢289.9 billion. The dollar equivalent was $64 billion in 2019, and $63.2 billion in 2018.

The non-oil annual GDP growth rate, however, decreased from 6.5 per cent in 2018 to 5.8 per cent in 2019. The drop was as a result of a decline in the contribution of mining and quarrying activities.

Sector contributions

The services sector recorded the highest growth rate of 7.6 per cent, followed by industry, 6.4 per cent; and agriculture, 4.6 per cent.

Services

Services remained the largest sector with its share of GDP increasing from 46.3 per cent in 2018 to 47.2 per cent in 2019. The sector’s GDP growth rate increased from 2.7 per cent in 2018 to 7.6 per cent in 2019 and contributed 2.8 percentage points (43.4 per cent) to the 2019 annual growth rate of 6.5 per cent.

Two of the sub-sectors in the services sector contributed more than five per cent to the 2019 annual growth rate. These are the Information and Communication, with a growth rate of 46.5 per cent and a contribution of 1.0 percentage points (15.7 per cent) to annual growth, and trade, repair of vehicles and household goods sub-sector (3.7 per cent), which contributed 0.4 percentage point to the annual GDP growth.

Industry

The industry sector contributed 2.4 percentage points (37.5 per cent ) to the 2019 annual GDP growth rate, though its share of GDP at basic prices increased by 0.2 per cent from 34.0 per cent in 2018 to 34.2 per cent in 2019.

The main driver of 2019 GDP growth was the Mining and Quarrying sub-sector with a growth rate of 12.6 per cent and contribution to growth of 2.0 percentage points (31.2 per cent). There was some contraction in the construction (-4.4 per cent) and water and sewerage, waste management and remediation activities (-4.4 per cent).

Agriculture

The agriculture sector grew by 4.6 per cent in 2019 compared to a growth rate of 4.8 per cent in 2018. Its share of GDP declined from 19.7 per cent in 2018 to 18.5 per cent in 2019.

Crops was the third largest activity in the country with a share of 13.8 per cent of GDP and contributed 0.7 percentage points to 2019 annual GDP growth.

The forestry and logging sub-sector contracted (-1.7 per cent), having recorded 2.4 per cent in 2018.

The non-oil annual GDP growth rate decreased from 6.5 per cent in 2018 to 5.8 per cent in 2019.

Slow growth

According to the GSS, the slowdown in the growth rate could be attributed to a 10.4 per cent growth rate in mining and quarrying activities (excluding oil and gas) in 2019 compared to 48.6 per cent in 2018.

Contractions in the forestry and logging, water and sewerage, and construction sub-sectors also contributed to the slowdown in the non-oil GDP growth in 2019.

Source: Graphic.com