Economy grew by 2.9% in 2023 – GSS

The economy saw a 2.9% Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in 2023, surpassing the Finance Ministry’s revised forecast of 1.5%.

However, Government Statistician Professor Samuel Kobina Annim said this growth rate was slightly slower than the 3.1% recorded in 2022.

Data from the Ghana Statistical Service revealed that while the industry sector remains the largest in the economy, it contracted by 1.2% of GDP in 2023 compared to a 0.6% contraction in 2022. The decline was primarily attributed to the 10.9% and 9.9% contractions in the Electricity and Construction subsectors, respectively.

Mining and Quarrying was the only subsector within industry that recorded growth, at 2.5%.

Meanwhile, the Agriculture sector grew at a rate of 4.0% in 2023, slightly lower than the 4.5% growth seen in 2022.

With the exception of Forestry and Logging, which contracted by 5%, all subsectors within Agriculture expanded.

The Livestock subsector recorded the highest growth rate within Agriculture, at 4.9%.

In the Services sector, growth stood at 5.5% in 2023, with all 12 subsectors expanding.

Information and Communication recorded the highest growth rate at 18.0%, while Trade, Repair of Vehicles, Household Goods had the lowest growth rate at 0.3%.

Professor Annim noted that the last quarter of 2023 saw a higher growth rate of 3.8%, driven primarily by the oil and gas subsector.

This marks the first time in over a year that Ghana experienced a higher growth rate in oil GDP.

Over the past decade, four subsectors (Crops; Trade, Repair of Vehicles, and Household Goods; Mining and Quarrying; and Manufacturing) have consistently accounted for over 50.0% of Ghana’s GDP.

This trend has been increasing, with the last two years seeing a share of more than 60%.