Provisional data from the Ghana Statistical Service indicates that the Ghanaian economy grew by 5.6% in the third quarter of this year.
In the same period last year, the growth rate was 7.4%.

Without oil, the Gross Domestic Product of the country for the third quarter of 2019 stood at 4.6%.

The agriculture sector recorded the highest growth rate of 5.9%, with the industry and services sectors expanding by 5.7% simultaneously.
The government’s economic growth target for this year is 7.1%.

High growth rates in Information & Communication (26.6%); Real Estate (22.1%); Electricity (10.8%); Education (9.5%); Mining & Quarrying (8.5%), (of which Oil and Gas grew by 18%); Crops (7.3%) (of which Cocoa grew by 5.4%); Public Administration & Defence, Social Security (6.1%); Transport & Storage (5.1%) and Manufacturing (4.6%) contributed significantly to the 5.6% GDP for quarter three 2019.

Water & Storage, Waste management & Remediation activities (-1.3%) and Forestry & Logging (-0.6%) were the sectors that registered negative growths.

For the agriculture sector, the expanding sub-sectors were Crops (7.3%); Livestock (5.7%) and Fishing (0.4%). The contracting sub sectors were Forestry and Logging (-0.6).
For industry, the high growth sub sectors were Electricity (10.8%); Mining & Quarrying (8.5%) and Manufacturing (4.6%).

Construction grew by 1.4%, signaling low activities in the sub sector, while Water & Storage, Waste management & Remediation activities recorded a negative growth.

Within the services sector, the high growth rates were recorded by Information & Communication (26.6%); Real Estate (22.1%);

Education (9.5%); Public Administration & Defence, Social Security (6.1%); Transport & Storage (5.1%) and Health and Social Work (4.5%).

There were however no negative growth rates.
Presently, the services sector controls 45.8% of the economy whilst industry and agriculture constitutes 18.5 and 35.7% receptively of the share of the economy.

The GDP estimate at constant 2013 prices for the third quarter of 2019 was however GHS41.5 billion.

Credit: Classfmonline