Fall in oil output slows Ghana’s economic growth to 2.5% in 2012 second quarter

Ghana’s economy growth slowed to 2.5 percent, year-on-year in the second quarter of 2012 and provisional full year growth is estimated at 7.1 percent, the Ghana Statistical Service said on Wednesday.

Dr Philomena Nyarko, Acting Government Statistician, told a press conference that the slow growth could be attributed to a decline in oil production and other economic activities.

“What this means is that economic activities generally went down in the second quarter year-on-year, compared to the first quarter,” Dr Nyarko said.

During the quarter, industry recorded the highest growth of 4.5 percent, followed by services with 1.6 percent and agriculture recoding a decline of (-0.1) percent.

The crop sub-sector, including cocoa, grew by 15 percent whilst forestry, fishing and livestock sub-sectors registered declines, contributing to the overall decline of the agricultural sector by (-0.1) percent.

Dr Nyarko said the main contributors of the industry sector were the construction sub-sector, which recorded a growth of 10.8 percent, electricity up 9.5 percent and mining and quarrying with 2.6 percent.

Hotel and restaurants with 76.1 percent led the charge in the increased economic activity in the services sector.

Other contributors were business and real estate activities and other social and personal activities.

On the other hand, Transport and Storage and Trade subsectors dragged on the growth of the services sector.

Source: GNA