Ghana’s economy grew by 6.3% in 2018, according to the Ghana Statistical Service

The total value of all goods and services produced in the country in 2018 amounted to GHC154.5 billion.

According to the figures, the industry subsector recorded the highest growth of 10.6 per cent, followed by agriculture with 4.8 per cent.

Meanwhile, the services subsector recorded the least growth of 2.7 per cent.

The 2018 GDP equally resulted in an increase in per capita GDP.

The figure increased from GH¢ 4,679 in 2013 to GH¢ 9,927.

Speaking on how these figures had an actual impact on the livelihoods of the citizenry, Government Statistician Professor Samuel Annim said: “this simply means that we have accounted for the population within the country…on the average, this is the annual amount but the distribution is another argument.”

“Statistically we can compute the average but that doesn’t mean there is an equal distributional effect in which case the poorest in the economy is going to benefit from the richest,” he added.

Meanwhile, for the last quarter of 2018 [October to December], Ghana’s economy grew by 6.8 per cent.

Comparing this to the same period in 2017, this is an increase compared to the 5.5 per cent recorded the previous year.

According to the GSS, this can be attributed to the growth recorded in sectors like mining and quarrying, health and social work.

But further analysis shows that the decline in oil and gas production led to slow growth of 20 per cent in the last quarter of 2018 compared to the same period the preceding year.

In addition, the informal sector’s share of the total value of goods and services between 2013 and 2018 increased from 36.1 billion to 42.6 billion cedis.

In 2018, the three key subsectors, that is services, agriculture and industry recorded growth rates of 10.6, 4.8 and 2.7 per cent respectively.