Provisional GDP for 2020 1st quarter increases to 92.5 billion cedis

Provisional figures released by the Ghana Statistical Service shows that the country’s first quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP), that is from January to March at current prices, increased to 92.5 billion cedis.

Compared to the same period in 2019, the figure was at 84.8 billion cedis.

On sector basis, Services recorded the highest growth rate of 9.5 percent followed by the Agriculture sector with 2.8 percent growth rate, with industry coming at the bottom with 1.5 percent growth rate for the first quarter of 2020.

The data released by the Ghana Statistical Service also showed that the Information and Communication sub-sector recorded the highest year-on-year quarterly GDP growth rate of 77.4%.

Even though the Ghana Statistical Service did not put any reason to this, it could be deduced that the increase in the use of data during the partial lock-down period as a measure of controlling the COVID-19 pandemic may have played a role.

In the agriculture sector, the Fishing sub-sector recorded the highest year-on-year quarterly GDP growth rate of 14.1%, while the Forestry and logging sub-sector recorded the lowest, with a contraction of negative 7.1 percent.

Under industry, the Electricity sub-sector recorded the highest year-on-year quarterly GDP growth rate of 17.1%,, while the Construction sub-sector recorded the lowest, with a contraction of negative 6.9 percent.

“The quarter-on-quarter seasonally adjusted GDP growth rate for the 1^st quarter of 2020 was 1.2%. This means that the value of goods and services produced in the  1^st quarter of 2020 grew by 1.2% over the value recorded in the 4^th quarter of 2019”.

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) measures the value of final goods and services produced in the country.