Economist, and Director at the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research, (ISSER), Professor Peter Quartey has attributed the poor performance of the Industry sector to high inflation and high cost of doing business in the country in 2022.

Data released by the Ghana Statistical Service yesterday April 19, 2023 showed that the 3.1% growth rate of the economy was led by the Services sector, followed by Agriculture and Industry.

Speaking to Joy Business, Prof. Quartey explained that the difficult economic conditions contributed to the poor performance of the Industry sector.

“As a business owner, if you want to produce, you will also want to look at the environment”.

“If the exchange rate is depreciating rapidly, if inflation is going up, if electricity tariffs are going up, fuel prices are rising, and if interest rates are going up; before you go into production”, he said.

Professor Quartey pointed out that all the factors and macro-economic indicators got worse in 2022, a situation that heavily contributed to the low performance of industry.

“I am not surprised. It was expected. There was a lot of market uncertainty. As an investor, despite all the policies of government, these factors will affect your production” he explained.

He added that the consumer was also overburdened, affecting incomes. This he said affected the purchasing power of consumers.

“Even if you are a producer, demand for your goods may come down”, he said stressing that all these factors affected industry.  

GDP figures

Provisional estimates from the Ghana Statistical Service indicates that Ghana’s economy expanded by 3.1% in 2022, 0.6% lower than 3.7% forecast by the government.

This is below Ghana’s average Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate of 5.0% pre-Covid-19.

It beat most analysts forecast as the African Development Bank in January 2023 had projected that Ghana’s economy grew by 3.6% in 2022.

In 2021, post Covid-19, the economy grew by 0.9%.

According to the GSS, Industry recorded a GDP growth rate of 0.9%. But the Manufacturing sub-sector (-2.5%), Electricity (-3.3%), Water and Sewerage (-4.9%) and Construction (-4.0%) sub-sectors contracted.