Ghana’s economy will register a 7.1 per cent growth rate at the end of the year, the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has indicated.
The growth rate is 2.3 per cent lower than the government’s projected growth rate of 9.4 per cent for 2012.
According to the acting Government Statistician, Dr Philomena Nyarko, the 2012 growth rate would be partly influenced by a decline in crude oil production and a reduction in the growth of the manufacturing sector.
At a press conference in Accra yesterday, Dr Nyarko said provisional and revised estimates of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) indicated that the local economy is worth GH˘71.9 billion in 2012, compared to GH˘59.3 billion in 2011.
The Executive Director of the Centre for Policy Analysis (CEPA), Dr Joseph Abbey, told the Daily Graphic in an interview that he was shocked by the findings of the provisional data from GSS.
“To have a growth rate of 7.1 per cent is a bit surprising to me. Our projections at CEPA show that annualised growth will be at 8.6 per cent and so I am really surprised to hear the GSS say 7.1 per cent for 2012,” Dr Abbey, himself once a Government Statistician, said in his preliminary reaction to the data.
The GSS, however, indicated that the provisional data released in Accra yesterday “will be reviewed in March 2013 to capture all economic activities within the year”.
“We based our projections on trends in the previous years and quarters. Some of the companies also give us provisional data regarding their growth targets for the year and, with these, we arrived at the 7.1 per cent growth rate for 2012,” the Head of Industrial and Economic Statistics at the GSS, Mr Ebo Duncan, said in an interview after the news conference.
The revision is expected to take into consideration the projected rise in oil production from the current average of 75,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd) to about 90,000 bpd towards December 2012 and its impact on all industry growth.
The provisional data further showed that the services sector recorded the highest growth of 8.8 per cent, followed by industry with a growth rate of seven per cent. The agricultural sector recorded the lowest growth rate of 2.6 per cent, the lowest since 2006.
“The agricultural sector’s contribution to the economy continues to decline, with its share reducing from 25.6 per cent of GDP to 23.1 per cent,” the acting Government Statistician said.
She, however, noted that “the crops sub-sector remains the largest activity in the economy, with a share of 19.3 per cent of GDP”.
The economy, meanwhile, grew at 2.5 per cent in the second quarter of this year as a result of the 4.5 per cent growth posted in the industrial sector. The services sector grew at 1.6 per cent within the period.
Growth in the agricultural sector, however, declined by 0.1 per cent in the second quarter, compared to the 0.7 per cent growth recorded in the second quarter of 2011.
Source: Daily Guide
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