Finance Minister updates Parliament on macroeconomic developments in 2017

By
Christabel Addo-GNA

Accra, July 19, GNA – Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, the
Minister of Finance on Thursday, said provisional data released by the Ghana
Statistical Service (GSS) in April 2018 showed that the overall real GDP growth
(including oil) was 8.5 per cent for 2017.

This, he said, represented an increase from
the original projection of 6.3 per cent, and the 3.7 per cent growth recorded
in 2016.

Mr Ofori-Atta gave the statistics in his
Mid-Year Fiscal Policy Review of the 2018 Budget Statement and Economic Policy
presented to Parliament in Accra, on Thursday.  

Giving an overview of recent macroeconomic
development, he said Industry was the best growth performer in 2017, recording
a growth of 16.7 per cent, which was driven primarily by increased crude oil
production, and this was followed by Agriculture with a growth of 8.4 per cent,
and Services with an outturn of 4.3 per cent.

He said the non-oil real GDP, however, grew by
4.9 per cent in 2017, compared with 5.0 per cent in 2016.

The Finance Minister however explained that
the strong growth recorded in 2017 was largely on account of a strong
performance of the petroleum subsector, which grew by 8.4 per cent, compared
with a contraction of 16.9 per cent in 2016.

The Services Sector, he said though remained
dominant, its share of GDP declined slightly from 56.8 per cent in 2016 to 56.2
per cent in 2017, while that of Agriculture also reduced from 18.9 to 18.5 per
cent respectively.

Mr Ofori-Atta attributed the performance of
the annual GDP to robust quarterly growth in 2017, saying that, in the first
quarter of the same year, GDP grew by 6.7 per cent year-on-year basis,
registering a further growth of 9.4 and 9.7 per cent in the second and third
quarters respectively, but recorded a drop by the fourth quarter to register
8.1 per cent.

The Finance Minister also explained that
headline inflation declined from 15.4 per cent in December 2016 to 11.8 per
cent in December 2017, saying that, this was supported by appreciable fiscal
consolidation, the monetary policy tightening over the past years, relative
stability of the exchange rate for most of 2017, as well as the easing of
underlying inflation pressures.

“The slowdown in inflation was driven by both
food and non-food inflation”, he said.

He explained that the Food inflation declined
to 8.0 per cent in December 2017, from 9.7 per cent in December 2016, driven
largely by domestic food components.

Similarly, non-food inflation declined from
18.2 per cent in December 2016 to 13.6 per cent in December 2017, supported by
the relative stability in the domestic currency and favourable base effects, he
said.

GNA

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