The Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) is projecting a slowdown of the services sector in 2024.

It is therefore forecasting a 1.8% growth rate.

This would be lower than the previous year's performance.

ISSER is however predicting the services sector to expand by 3.0% in 2024 and 5.0% in 2025 respectively.

The Services nd the Agriculture sectors are expected to be the drivers of growth in 2023.

According to ISSER, the International Monetary Fund deal will help Ghana regain investor confidence and boost domestic tourism.

Overall, it said, the services sector is expected to gain significant benefits with the sealing of the IMF deal.

"In all, the services sector is expected to gain significant benefits with the sealing of the IMF deal. The sector is expected to continue to show resilience and as a backbone to overall economic growth".

Services sector main contributor to Ghana’s growth recovery

At a growth rate of 5.5% in 2022, compared with 9.4% in 2021, the services sector was the main contributor to Ghana’s growth recovery (SGER 2021).

Despite the sector’s continuous key dominance in 2022, its performance fell short of the 2021 comparative estimates.

The Sector’s relatively slower growth in 2022 was largely due to the general slowdown in the growth of all subsectors except Finance and Insurance, Education as well as Health and Social Work.

ICT remains the best performing subsector though growth in 2022 was less than the 2021 rate.

This ISSER, said, may partly be due to the relative slowdown in the intensity of virtual services usage post-pandemic. The education growth rate in 2022 is the highest since 2015.

Services sector records 6.3% GDP growth in quarter 2, 2023

In the second quarter of 2023, the services sector recorded a growth rate of 6.3%.

According to the Ghana Statistical Services, 10 out of the 11 sub-sectors expanded during the period.

Trade, Repair of Vehicle and Household Goods (-5.3%) was the only sector that contracted.

The IMF is however forecasting a 1.5% growth rate for Ghana this year, whilst the World Bank is projecting 1.6% GDP growth.