The economy grew by 5.4 percent year-on-year in the second quarter of 2018, compared to 11. 1 per cent recorded for the second quarter of 2017, provisional data from the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has indicated.
The value of the economy, including oil, as measured by the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was GH¢71.8 billion compared to GH¢62.7 billion in the second quarter of 2017.
The growth of the economy in the second quarter was largely driven by the industry sector which recorded the highest growth of 11.1 percent. The agriculture sector followed with 4.8 per cent and the services sector recorded a growth rate of 0.5 percent.
The acting Government Statistician, Mr Baah Wadieh, said the sectoral distribution in the second quarter of 2018 showed that the services sector maintained its dominance with 48.4 percent contribution to GDP, followed by 35.1 percent and agriculture with 16.5 percent.
Sub–sector growth
Mr Wadieh explained that the sub-sectors that recorded double–digit positive growth rates were health and social work with 26.8 percent, mining and quarrying with 24.7 percent and Information and Communication with 14.6 percent.
He added that contraction was however observed in the financial and insurance activities (-13.4 percent), professional, administrative and support services activities (-5.9 percent), water and sewerage (-3.5 percent), trade, repairs of vehicles, household goods (-1.5 percent), transport and storage (-1.1 percent), and real estate (-0.8 percent) sub-sectors.
Quarterly GDP
He said the provisional quarter-on-quarter seasonally adjusted real GDP, including oil growth rate for the second quarter of 2018, was 1.3 percent.
In the Agriculture sector, the Livestock sub- sector grew by 1.1 per cent, compared to 1.3 per cent in the first quarter of 2018. The crops sub-sector grew by 1.0 percent in the second quarter of 2018, compared to 1.4 percent growth recorded in the first quarter of 2018. The fishing sub-sector recorded the least growth rate of 0.5 percent within the agriculture sector.
Within the Industry sector, the Mining and Quarrying sub-sector grew by 5.9 percent in the second quarter of 2018, compared to 5.7 percent in the first quarter of 2018.
“The Electricity sub-sector grew by 2.3 percent in the second quarter of 2018, compared to 0.2 percent growth recorded in the first quarter of 2018. Water and Sewerage sub-sector recorded the least growth rate of - 0.9 per cent, compared to 0.4 percent in the first quarter of 2018,” he said.
In the services sector, health and social work grew by 5.9 per cent, same as the growth rate recorded in the first quarter of 2018. The Information and Communication sub-sector grew by 3.3 per cent in the second quarter of 2018 compared to 3.7 per cent in the first quarter of 2018. The least growth rate of -3.8 percent was observed in the Finance & Insurance sub-sector.
Producer inflation goes down
Inflation from the producer’s perspective recorded a 1.4 percentage point decline in the month of September. The rate for September 2018 was 5.6 per cent compared to 7.0 per cent recorded in August 2018.
The Producer Price Index (PPI) measures the average change over time in the prices received by domestic producers for the production of their goods and services.
Mr Wadieh said the decline in the inflation rate for Mining and Quarrying as well as the Manufacturing sector led to the overall decline in the Producer inflation for the period under review.
The producer price inflation in the Mining and Quarrying sub-sector decreased by 1.5 percentage points over the August 2018 rate of 1.9 per cent to record 0.4 per cent. The Producer inflation for Manufacturing which constitutes more than two-thirds of total industry decreased by 1.7 percentage points to record 8.3 per cent.
The Utilities sub-sector recorded the lowest year-on-year producer inflation of -0.2 per cent, same as the rate recorded in August 2018.
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