Ghana to miss 7.1% growth target

The government of Ghana is set to miss its economic growth target of 7.1% in 2019.

The country registered a Gross Domestic Product growth rate of 5.6% in the third quarter of this year.

It will require a growth rate of about 10.0% in the fourth quarter of 2019 to meet its GDP target for the entire year, a practically impossible situation that requires key sectors such as construction, financial services and manufacturing to contribute to that growth.

According to the 2020 Budget Estimates, provisional data available on the performance of the economy as of the end of September 2019 show that most of the macroeconomic indicators are on target.

Economic Analyst Courage Martey said: “For 2019, I think it is late in the day because we are already in December and any policy implementation right now to achieve that 7.0% target for end-2019 will only spillover into the 2020 growth numbers.”

“If you look at critical areas that are struggling to pull up, you look at the construction sub-sector, the growth numbers are not quite impressive after contracting in the first two quarters”, adding that they “have assumed positive growth but then the construction sector need to grow strongly and that is where we have contractors getting their payment and we are having liquidity being injected into the economy”, he emphasised.

Mr Martey urged the government to get on the ground particularly, with the Sinohydro project, in getting the construction sector busy and growing.

Ghana’s economy grew by 5.6% in the third quarter of this year. In the same period last year, the growth rate was 7.4%.

Without oil, the Gross Domestic Product of the country for the third quarter of 2019 stood at 4.6%.