ACCRA- Ghana's economy grew 5.4% in 2021, the country's statistics agency said on Wednesday, marking a sharp rebound from the lows of the COVID-19 pandemic while staying within growth estimates.

The West African country's gross domestic product grew 7% year on year in the fourth quarter, largely due to increased agricultural production though the industrial sector contracted.

"We're seeing the agricultural sector and service sectors reaching peaks unseen since 2013," said government statistician Samuel Kobina Annim at a news conference.

"We've seen a reverse pattern for the industrial sector, which is at one of its lowest points since 2013, when we rebased our GDP," he added.

A Reuters poll of three major financial institutions last year predicted that Ghana's economy would grow 5.1% in 2021.

The finance ministry had repeatedly targeted 5.5% growth for the same period, with Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta having predicted 5.8% growth for 2022 in November.

The Statistics Service revised growth in the third quarter of 2021 to 6.5% from 6.6% previously, that of the second quarter to 4.2% from 3.9%, and to 3.6% from 3.1% in the first quarter. It also revised the 2020 annual growth rate to 0.5% from 0.4%.

The statistics agency also announced that producer price inflation rose to 29.3% in March, compared with 21.4% in February.

(Reporting by Christian Akorlie and Cooper Inveen; Editing by Estelle Shirbon and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)