The Monthly Indicator of Economic Growth settled at 7.5 percent in January, down from 8.2 percent in the same month a year earlier, the Ghana Statistical Service reported.
Services did the work. 9.6 percent growth against 7.7 percent last January, and 54.3 percent of the measure's weight behind it.
The drag came from agriculture and industry with agriculture halved to 4.5 percent from 9.3 percent and industry slipping to 7.2 percent from 9.7 percent, with the oil and gas segment of mining and quarrying identified as the active softener.
The sector contribution to January's indicator came out at 14.0 percent for agriculture, 29.0 percent for industry, and 54.3 percent for services.
Three things follow from the January print. Services is carrying the economy, which matches the pattern in banking and telecoms earnings reports through the back half of last year.
The industry slowdown sits directly on top of the PIAC report released the same week confirming six consecutive years of declining oil production. And agriculture's retrenchment is the kind of number the Monetary Policy Committee will weigh at its next sitting, after the rate cut to 14 percent in March and the sustained inflation decline into the low threes.
The January reading is not a reversal.
It is the first month of what the MPC's easing cycle has been betting on: a growth path that slows from last year's high while disinflation holds. Services is still running hot.
