Accra, Nov. 5, GNA - Ghana's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has gone up more than 60 per cent after a statistical re-basing of the economy to capture new sectors such as oil exploration, forestation and telecommunications, Dr Grace Bediako Government Statistician, said in Accra on Friday.

The re-based index of the economy, which saw the base year changed to 2006 instead of 1993, also projected the economy to grow by 6.6 per cent in 2010.

Rebasing of national accounts series means replacing the old base year used for compiling the constant price estimates to a new and more recent base year.

"Apart from the fact that a lot has changed in the economy, the base year did not allow us to reflect changes adequately. Rebasing allows the national income to capture the realities of the current period," Dr Bediako said.

Changes that characterize the new series include improvement in compilation methodology using the 1993 Systems of National Accounts (SNA) instead of the 1968 edition; improvements and revisions of data sources; updating of classification by adapting the latest version of the International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC); and compilation of GDP estimates using all three approaches - Production, Expenditure and Income.

Dr Bediako put provisional per capita GDP for the current year at GH¢1,872.07 ($1,318.36) compared with GH¢1,069.89 ($753) under the old series, moving the country into the middle income bracket. The new series places Ghana as the third largest in ranking of GDP per person in the ECOWAS sub-region behind Cape Verde and Nigeria, and 21st in Africa.

Some important data included in the new estimates are forest plantations (reforestation of degraded lands) - forestry and logging subsector, mobile communication - information and communication - oil exploration and development of oil wells.

On sectoral performance, the share of the agricultural sector in GDP under the new series saw agriculture, the dominant sector, now making up 30.2 per cent of the economy, lagging behind the services sector, which accounts for 51 per cent. The industrial sector accounts for 18.6 per cent.