President John Dramani Mahama has expressed optimism at the growth of the Ghanaian economy after the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) recorded a 5.3% economic growth for the first quarter of 2025.

Engaging the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) on Wednesday, June 11, the president stated that government’s policies are ensuring that the country’s growth is returning to normalcy.

“The first quarter results have come in at around 5.4%, which indicates that the economy is returning to a normal growth path. This should be viewed as a good sign for us. If we close the year with a growth rate of around 5%, it would mean the economy is expanding rather than contracting,” he said.

President Mahama highlighted the fiscal indiscipline by the erstwhile government led to economic imbalance and instability.

“In the past, fiscal indiscipline has thrown the macro-economy off balance, creating instability, a depreciating currency, and other challenges. This affects all of us, as it impacts our quality and standard of living.”

He, however, committed to ensuring “stability across all sectors and greater prosperity for our citizens.”

“It is in our interest that the macro economy is stable, our currency is stable, and our economy is growing and delivering prosperity for our people,” the president added.

The first quarter’s growth represents a 0.4% increase from the 4.9% growth recorded during the same period last year. The services sector and the agricultural sector are responsible for the strong performance, according to the GSS.

"All sectors recorded growth, apart from the Industry sector, which recorded a contraction. This is driven by oil and gas. Growth in the services sector was dominated by the ICT sector, followed by the Financial and Insurance sub-sectors", Dr. Alhassan Iddrisu, the Government Statistician, told the media on Wednesday, June 11.

Slow growth in the oil and gas sector led to the industry sector recording a rate of 3.4%. The non-oil growth rate, however, was 6.8%.

In March this year, the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) attributed the country’s 5.7% economic growth in 2024 to the strong performance of the services sector, particularly the increased use of data and SMS under the Information and Communication Services category.

Addressing Parliament on Wednesday, March 11, former Government Statistician Professor Samuel Kobina Anim emphasized that services contributed the most to the overall growth, surpassing other sectors.

“Of the 5.7% growth rate that we saw in GDP, the services sector contributed the most, 2.51% of the 5.7% GDP growth rate that we saw for 2024.

“Followed by the industry sector, which mining and quarrying is part of, which gold is part of, contributed to 2.24% of that.

“Within the service sector, what is driving the service sector is information and communication. And in this case, it’s data and SMS messages that we are using,” he stated.

Meanwhile, Ghana’s economic outlook for 2025 has been slightly downgraded by the World Bank, with the institution forecasting a 3.9% Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth—lower than both the government’s projection of 4.4% and the World Bank’s earlier forecast of 4.3%.

The updated projection is contained in the April 2025 edition of the Africa Pulse Report, where the Bretton Woods institution also anticipates modest improvements in the country’s economic performance over the next two years, projecting a growth rate of 4.6% in 2026 and 4.8% in 2027.

According to the World Bank, weather-related uncertainties remain a major concern, especially as they affect key export commodities such as cocoa in both Ghana and neighbouring Côte d’Ivoire. These climate disruptions have also had ripple effects on global cocoa stockpiles and pricing.

However, the World Bank highlighted renewed optimism among businesses and improvements in sectors like manufacturing and services during the early months of 2025.