Ghana’s economy is expected to grow by more than 4.8% in 2025, IC Research has disclosed in its paper titled “Ghana’s Q12025 Real GDP Growth: Green Shoots in Tight Soil”.

This is against the backdrop of the solid growth momentum in quarter one 2025 despite the fiscal restraints and given the much-improved outlook for the rest of 2025.

“We foresee FY2025 overall growth likely above our upper-band forecast of 4.8%. However, we opt to stay our forecast on hold within the current range of 3.8% – 4.8% as we await the extent of fiscal drag on the 2Q2025 [2^nd quarter 2025] performance”, it said.

The Ghanaian economy exhibited early indications of a possible outperformance in 2025 as real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth defied the negative impact of fiscal restraint to post a better-than-expected outturn in first quarter 2025. Overall real GDP growth came in at 5.3% year-on-year compared to 4.9% recorded in the same period of 2024.

Excluding the oil & gas sector (which shrank during the period), non-oil real GDP growth expanded by an impressive 6.8% year-on-year in first quarter 2025.

IC Research said “This reflected strong underlying momentum in the real economy and has significantly raised our optimism about Ghana’s growth outlook for FY2025 despite the downside risks from fiscal tightening”.

The economic growth in quarter one was driven by the Fishing (16.6%), ICT (13.1%), Finance and Insurance (9.3%), Transport and Storage (8.6%), Trade (7.1%), Crops and Cocoa (6.7%) and Manufacturing (6.6%) sub sectors.

Agriculture Sector

IC Research said the robust growth in agriculture showed promise with a rebound in cocoa.

The agriculture sector delivered a surprise 6.6% growth in quarter ine 2025 on the back of robust growth in the heavy-weight crops sub-sector (6.7% year-on-year) ostensibly reflected in the declining trend in annual food inflation since February 2025.

“We note that the impressive performance in the crops sector is yet to reflect the government’s ongoing investment in agriculture with the target to support lower food inflation”, it stressed.

The government earmarked GHS1.5 billion in the 2025 budget to support investment in grains, vegetables, and poultry under the Agriculture for Economic Transformation Agenda.

“We expect these public investments to start yielding results during the upcoming crop harvest in late 3Q2025, potentially sustaining the strong growth in Agriculture for FY2025”, it added.

Industry Sector

The industry sector lost momentum with a slower growth of 3.4% as a 22.1% year-on-year contraction in the oil & gas sub-sector compressed growth in mining & quarrying to 1.4% year-on-year (vs 12.8% a year ago).

Additionally, the construction sector growth weakened markedly to 1.5% year-on-year in Q12025 (vs 8.2% a year earlier).

“We believe the slower growth rate in the construction sub-sector reflects the restraint on public spending in Q12025 as the new administration paused claims payment to contractors, pending the audit of inherited arrears”, IC Securities added.

Services Sector

The Services sector grew by 5.9% year-on-year in quarter one 2025 (vs 4.7% in the like period of 2024).

This was underpinned by stronger momentum in four engines of growth – consumer trade, digital economy, transport & storage, and financial services.

Resultantly, the services sector contributed 2.54 percentage points to overall growth in Q12025 (vs 2.04pp in 1Q2024.