Ghana’s economy contracts 1.1% in third quarter of 2020- Finance minister reveals

Ken Ofori-Atta, Ghana’s Finance Minister, has predicted a strong revamp in economic growth in 2021 after the overwhelming impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

Ghana’s economy contracted by 1.1% year-on-year in the third quarter of 2020 compared to the same period in 2019 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

In the same period in 2019, the growth was 5.6%.

According to Hon. Ken Ofori-Atta, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate without oil and gas (Non-Oil GDP) for third-quarter 2020 was -0.4% which, compared to the same period in 2019 with a growth rate of 4.6%.

Speaking on Agriculture, the minister said, the Agriculture sector recorded the highest growth of 8.3% while the Industry and Services sectors contracted 5.1% and 1.1% respectively.

Professor Samuel Annim, the Government Statistician, said 31,902 businesses were still closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The drivers of the negative growth during the period were the mining and quarrying sub-sector and trade, repair of vehicles fell 7.7%. while Mining and quarrying contracted by 16.9% while trade.

Speaking further, he said the hotel and restaurant sub-sector experienced the highest contraction of 62.1% but contributed less to the fall in GDP.

On the other hand, the Information and Communication sub-sector recorded an expansion of 51.3 percent while fishing grew by 20.4%.

Real estate was up 12.2% and electricity went up 11.6% during the period.

Source: MynewsGhana.net