Ghana's economy expands slightly by 0.4% in 2020

Ghana’s economy grew at a rate of 0.4% in 2020, below governments revised target of 0.9 percent as well as forecasts of market analysts, provisional figures from the Ghana Statistical Service have shown.

The economy contracted in the second and third quarters of 2020, by 3.2% and 1.1% respectively, following an expansion of 4.9% in the first quarter, due to the ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the provisional figures, the agriculture sector drove the annual GDP with a growth rate of 7.4%, while the services sector recorded a positive growth rate of 1.5%, Industry contracted at a rate of 3.6%.

For the agriculture sector, the fishing sub-sector recorded the highest year-on-year growth rate of 14.4 % while the forestry and logging sub-sector recorded the lowest with a contraction of 9.2%.

The information and communication sub-sector recorded the highest year-on-year GDP growth rate of 22.5% in the services sector, while the Hotel & Restaurants Activities sub-sector recorded the lowest with a contraction of 34.8%.

With regard to Industry, the electricity sub-sector recorded the highest year-on-year annual GDP growth rate of 7.9% for 2020, while the mining & quarrying sub-sector recorded the lowest with a contraction of 11.0%.

For the size of the economy, the services sector controlled 44.6% of the economy, whilst industry and agriculture constituted 36.3% and 19.1% respectively.

The size of the economy was also estimated at GH₵404.87 billion.