Economic Growth Doesn't Reflect Actual Growth

By Chris Twum
Email:[email protected]
 
 
Economists at the Institute of Statistical Social and Economic Research (ISSER) of the University of Ghana have observed that the country's economic growth against the global economic performance under the year 2012 did not reflect the actual growth of the entire population of the country.

 
According to them, government economic policies, especially the monetary policy of the Bank of Ghana (BoG) have created a huge risk which involves unpleasant developments in the world commodity prices and foreign investment inflows.

 
Speaking at the launch of 'The State of the Ghanaian Economy Report, 2012', the Director of ISSER, Prof. Felix Asante, however, noted that the weak monetary policy of BoG had created  favorable avenue for the private sector which they failed to take advantage of.

 
'Ghana's weak infrastructural system, especially in the energy and transportation sectors, and ineffectiveness in the public administration structure undermines all efforts being made to make investing in the Ghana a worthwhile venture', Prof. Asante added.

 
He said: 'The decrease in the real GDP growth rate translates into a decrease in the real per capital GDP growth rate from 12.3 percent in 2011 to 5 per cent in 2012, based on the population growth rate of 2.2 per cent'.

 
The strongest performance came from the services sector compared to the industrial sector in the previous year, and the sector was targeted to grow at 7.7 per cent from 8.3 per cent in 2011, Prof Asante noted.

 
'The actual growth of the service sector was 10.2 per cent, 2.5 percentage points more than the target. This was followed by the industrial sector, which performed well below the target of 15.8 per cent, and grew at the rate of 7 per cent in 2012'.

 
The agriculture sector still continues to perform poorly, a trend observed since 2006, though in 2012, actual growth exceeded the previous year's growth rate by 0.5 per cent point.