The Ghanaian economy has showed early signs of potential out-performance in 2025
Despite projections that Ghana’s economy will grow between 4.5% and 4.8% by the end of 2025, IC Research has indicated that the country’s GDP could surpass these estimates.
In its paper titled “Ghana’s Q1 2025 Real GDP Growth: Green Shoots in Tight Soil”, IC Research noted that the strong performance of the economy in the first quarter of 2025 suggests a higher-than-expected growth rate.
According to the report, the Ghanaian economy showed early signs of potential out-performance in 2025, as real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth defied the negative impact of fiscal restraint and posted a better-than-expected result in the first quarter of 2025.
Overall, real GDP growth reached 5.3% year-on-year, compared to 4.9% recorded in the same period of 2024.
“We foresee full-year 2025 overall growth likely exceeding our upper-band forecast of 4.8%. However, we have opted to maintain our current forecast range of 3.8% – 4.8% as we await the extent of fiscal drag on the second quarter 2025 performance,” the report stated.
The research firm highlighted that, excluding the oil and gas sector, which contracted during the period, non-oil real GDP grew by an impressive 6.8% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2025.
“This reflects strong underlying momentum in the real economy and has significantly boosted our optimism about Ghana’s growth outlook for 2025, despite the downside risks posed by fiscal tightening,” the report added.
Growth in the first quarter was driven by several key sectors, including 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%).
IC Research also noted that the agriculture sector delivered a surprising 6.6% growth in the first quarter of 2025, largely due to robust growth in the high-weight crops sub-sector (6.7% year-on-year). This, the report said, is likely contributing to the declining trend in annual food inflation observed since February 2025.
“We note that the impressive performance in the crops sector has yet to reflect the government’s ongoing investments in agriculture, which aim to support lower food inflation,” it emphasised.
SSD/MA
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