Ghana’s economy expands 6.9 per cent in second quarter 2024

Ghana's economy grew 6.9 percent in the second quarter of 2024 as compared to 2.5 per cent recorded in the same period last year, the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) said Wednesday.The second quarter provisional growth was 1.6 per cent higher compared to real GDP in first quarter of 2024.'This was 0.4 percentage points higher than what was recorded in Q1 2024 thus January to March.The provisional quarterly real GDP growth rate without oil and gas (non-oil GDP) for 2024 Q2 is 7.0 per cent, which compares to a growth rate of 3.1 percent in the same quarter last year,' the GSS said in a statement.Mining and Quarrying, Crops, Information and Communication, Construction, and Manufacturing, were the main drivers of GDP growth in the second quarter.'Forestry and Logging, Other Personal Service Activities, and Water Supply, Sewerage, Waste Management and Remediation Activities were the main subsectors that contracted in the second quarter,' the GSS said.It also noted that the Services sector continued to be the largest sector of the Ghanaian economy with a share of 44.2 per cent of GDP while the GDP shares of Industry and Agriculture were 32.2 per cent and 23.6 per cent, respectively.GSS noted that the industry sector recorded the highest year-on-year real GDP growth of 9.3 per cent, followed by the services sector at 5.8 per cent, whilst the agriculture sector recorded a growth rate of 5.4 per cent.Within agriculture sector, the crop sub-sector expanded the most and the sub-sector that contracted the most was Forestry and Logging.'The Crops sub-sector expanded by 6.4 percent (year-on-year) and by 1.4 (quarter-on-quarter seasonally adjusted) in 2024 Q2 compared to the Forestry and Logging sub-sector which had a growth rate of -5.2 percent (year-on-year) and -1.3 (quarter-on-quarter seasonally adjusted).Within the industry sector, the Mining and Quarrying expanded the most by 14.8 per cent while the Water Supply, Sewerage, Waste Management and Remediation Activities sub-sector contracted the most by -9 .6 percent (year-on-year) and -2.1 percent (quarter-on-quarter seasonally adjusted) respectively.'The services sub-sector which expanded the most was Information and Communication and the sub-sector that contracted the most was Other Personal Service Activities.'The Information and Communication sub-sector expanded by 12.8 percent (year-on-year) and by 2.9 (quarter-on-quarter seasonally adjusted) in 2024 Q2 compared to the Other Personal Service Activities sub-sector which had a growth rate of -3.1 percent (year-on-year) and - 0.9 (quarter-on-quarter seasonally adjusted),' the statement highlighted.Source: Ghana News Agency