Press Statement

Preasráiteas

15 December 2017

GDP increased by 4.2% in Quarter 3

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) today (Friday 15^th December 2017) published Quarterly National Accounts and Balance of Payments results for Quarter 3, 2017.

Commenting, Jennifer Banim, Assistant Director General with responsibility for Economic Statistics said:

“The National Accounts results show an increase of 4.2% in GDP in the quarter when compared with Quarter 2, 2017.   The growth in GDP was driven by strong performances in the Manufacturing sector (+5.1%) and in the Information and Communication sector (+5.8%), while the Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing sector experienced a contraction (-9.0%).

Looking at expenditure in the economy, Personal consumption of goods and services, a key indicator of domestic economic activity that measures personal expenditure, increased by 1.9% in Quarter 3, 2017.

Large imports of intellectual property products and of aircraft related to the leasing sector were absent from the Quarter 3, 2017 data.  As a result, Total domestic demand in the quarter (€48bn) was very similar to the Modified domestic demand indicator (€46bn), which was developed by the CSO to remove these types of globalization activities.

Exports of goods and services grew by 4.4% in the quarter.  A reduction in service imports (-9.7%) was driven partly by reductions in imports of royalties, coupled with increases in royalty exports - an effect that is linked to the growing levels of intellectual property (IP) products located in Ireland.

In the Balance of Payments results for the quarter, a current account surplus of €14,488 million was recorded, compared to the € 1,154 million current account surplus in Quarter, 3 2016.

Increases of €2,065 million in profit inflows in Quarter 3, 2017 - mainly due to increases in the profits earned abroad and attributable to MNE’s head-quartered in Ireland - offset a strong increase of €3,071 million in direct investment profit outflows in the quarter.

Today’s Balance of Payments release includes a table of current account transactions with the UK, and shows a surplus of €3,353 million on trade in goods and services with the UK, offset by a deficit of €2,633 million on income flows in Quarter 3, 2017, giving a Current Account balance of €720 million.

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