Economist and Finance Lecturer, Dr. Lord Mensah is projecting a modest growth rate for the Ghanaian economy this year, despite a strong growth forecast by the International Monetary Fund, Moody’s and Fitch Solutions.

The Bretton Wood institution and the international organizations are predicting more than 4 percentage points growth rate for this year.

The economy expanded by 3.1% in the first quarter of this year, buoyed by Construction (14.2%), Manufacturing (6.1%) and ICT (22.1%).

Fitch Solution also believed the economy grew strongly in the second quarter too, compared with a contraction during the same period last year.

The government of Ghana also projected a 5.0% growth rate for this year.

But Dr. Lord Mensah tells Joy Business a strong expansion in the economy will be based on the performance of the global economy.

“I see a situation that we projected a high growth rate, but realizing it someway, somehow is going to be tough because of the difficulty in the possible revenue generation. Then also the other part of our economy that the covid-19 came to touch on is yet to recover.”

“You know our economy was thriving on services, looking at the tourism industry, looking at the financial sector and all that. Now it will be difficult for people to raise money and even mobilize deposit at the bank level for economic activities. Effectively, our economy is mainly driven by the global integration, so if the globe is not picking up, we shouldn’t expect our economy to pick up in that regard”, he added.

The University of Ghana Business School Senior Lecturer explained further that it will take something extraordinary for the country to grow at above 4%, adding, he shares similar assertion with the World Bank forecast of 1.4% for 2021.    

Economy expanded by 3.1% in quarter one 2021

The Ghanaian economy expanded by 3.1% in the first quarter of this year, the lowest since the same period in 2019.

However, in the same period of 2020, the GDP growth rate was 7.0%.

According to figures from the Ghana Statistical Services, Construction (14.2%)), Manufacturing (6.1%) as well as Information and Communication (22.1%) sub sectors were the main drivers of growth for the first three months.

The Agriculture sector recorded the highest growth of 4.3% and was followed by the Services sector with a growth of 4.0%. The Industry sector expanded by a paltry 1.3%.