Ghana’s year-on-year economic growth rate shrank by 1.1 percent in the third quarter of 2020, for the second consecutive time this year, albeit, lower than the contraction in the second quarter which registered a decline of 3.2 percent, as announced by the government Statistician, Prof. Samuel Kobina Annim, during a press briefing today, December 16, 2020.
This is against the backdrop that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the same period in 2019 was 5.6 percent. More so, this year began on a good note with the economy recording a growth rate of 4.9 percent, only to register a decline in the second quarter as earlier noted.
The 2020 third quarter Gross Domestic Product at constant prices was estimated at GHS41, 059.6 as compared with GHS41, 511.4 for the same period of 2019.
The contraction of GDP with oil to 1.1 percent in the third quarter is attributed to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic which saw a lot of businesses remaining closed down after the partial lockdown was lifted over the period of August to September 2020.
Non-oil GDP also recorded a decline of 0.4 percent with figures GHS37, 790.9 for the third quarter of 2020 compared with GHS37, 951.2 for the same period of 2019.
From a sectoral perspective, the Services sector’s share of the GDP continued to dominate the other sectors with a contribution of GHS 35,913.3 million constituting 42 percent of GDP. This indicates a decline of about 6 percentage points compared with the sector’s contribution of 48 percent in the second quarter of 2020.
The second largest contributor to the GDP of the third quarter was the Industry sector which made GHS29, 360.4 million in contributions towards the overall GDP of the country, constituting 35 percent of the total GDP for the third quarter of 2020.
The Agriculture sector also saw an increase in contribution by 23 percent in the third quarter as compared with 19 percent in the second quarter of 2020. With total contribution of GHS 19, 819.7 million to GDP for the third quarter.
On a sub-sectoral level, sixteen out of the 22 sub-sectors of the economy saw an expansion in the period under review. Information and communication sub-sector saw the most expansion by 51.3 percent, followed by the fishing sub-sector which registered growth of 20.4 percent. The Electricity sub-sector expanded by 11.6 percent. Manufacturing and construction sub-sectors grew by 4 percent and 3.6 percent respectively. Other personal service activities was the least sector to have observed an expansion of 1.2 percent.
However, the Mining and Quarrying sub-sector shrank by -16.9 percent, this was largely attributed to the fall in gold production by 23 percent and oil production which also fell by 11 percentage points.
Hotel & Restaurants sub-sector registered the largest contraction of -62.1 percent, whereas Trade; Repair of Vehicle, Household Goods sub-sector contracted by -7.7 percent. The Forestry and Logging sub-sector also saw a contraction of 6.8 percent in the period under review.
Due to these large contraction in the above sub-sectors, these led to the overall contraction of the GDP in the third quarter. With the largest driver of the contraction coming from the mining and quarrying sub-sector due to its large share of the overall GDP.
READ MORE: PPI inches up to 8.8 % in November
