GDP grows in Q3 of 2021
Manufacturing, education, others main growth drivers
Ghana’s GDP recorded -3.2% growth rate in 2020
Provisional data released by the Ghana Statistical Service indicates Ghana’s economy in terms of real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increased by 6.6 percent in the third quarter of 2021.
According to the GSS, this was based on data collected from the period July to September 2021 as compared to the period in 2020 which recorded -3.2 percent of GDP.
The recent figures when seasonally adjusted mean the country’s real GDP increased by 1.6 percent in the quarter of 2021. This was also a 0.5 percentage point increase than figures recorded in the first quarter of 2021 namely April to June.
“The Crops, Education, Trade, Repair of vehicles, Household goods, Manufacturing and Information & Communication sub-sectors were the main drivers of GDP growth for the third quarter of 2021,” the GSS data said.
The GSS further revealed main sub-sectors of the economy that expanded in the third quarter of 2021 include; Education (24.2%), Health & Social Works (20.5%), Information & Communication (17.0%), Professional Administrative & Support (16.7%), and Hotel & Restaurants (16.4%).
Other areas are Public Administration & Defence, Social Security (16.3%), Fishing (14.3%), Real Estate (11.5%), Crops (9.8%).
Touching on sectoral growth rates of the economy, the GSS said the Services sector recorded the highest growth rate of 13.4 percent. This was then followed by the Agriculture sector which recorded 9.2 percent growth.
Meanwhile, Industry recorded a contraction of 2.0 percent on the back of contraction recorded in the mining sub-sector.
Despite this, several sub-sectors recorded expansions in the third quarter of 2021.
