Press Statement

Preasráiteas

15 July 2021

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) today (15 July 2021) published revised Quarterly National Accounts and International Accounts results for Quarter 1, 2021 and National Income and Expenditure (NIE) results for the year 2020. Today’s results include revisions routinely incorporated at this time due to the availability of more comprehensive and detailed data.  

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

“In the annual National Income and Expenditure results, GDP is estimated to have grown by 5.9% in 2020, driven largely by a 9.5% increase in Exports of Goods and Services. GNP - a measure of economic activity that excludes the profits of multi-nationals - grew by 3.4% in the year. 

COVID-19 related restrictions led to lower levels of economic activity in 2020 for many of the sectors focused on the domestic market. The Distribution, Transport, Hotels & Restaurants sector contracted by 19.3%, while the Construction sector decreased by 10.2%. Growth continued in the more globalised sectors with Industry increasing by 22.1%, while the Information & Communication sector increased by 13.8% in the year. 

Reflecting the impact of the COVID-19 related restrictions on the domestic economy, Personal Consumption of Goods and Services contracted by 10.4% in 2020, while Government spending on goods and services increased by 10.9% in 2020.

Capital investment decreased by just over 22% in 2020, mainly due to lower levels of investment in Intellectual Property Products (IPP), but because of the offsetting lower amounts of IPP imports, this decrease in intangible investment had an overall neutral impact on GDP in the year.”

Commenting on the indicators of underlying domestic activity, Ms. Banim said: 

“Today’s results include estimates for GNI*, the indicator designed to exclude globalisation effects that disproportionately impact Irish economic results. In the NIE results, the transition in current prices from a GDP level of €372.9 billion in 2020 to a GNI* level of €208.2 billion is shown (in NIE Annex 1). In constant prices, GNI* contracted by 3.5% in the year. 

Today’s results also include an additional indicator, Net National Income (NNI) at constant prices. NNI is an aggregate indicator from the National Accounts framework and is defined as Gross National Income (GNI) minus the amount charged for the consumption of capital assets including IPP assets. In the Irish results, NNI is an important indicator of underlying or de-globalised activity and closely mirrors the GNI* series. In current prices, NNI in 2020 stood at €181.1 billion. Between 2019 and 2020, NNI at constant prices fell by 4.3%.

Modified Domestic Demand (MDD) – a modified measure of personal, government and investment spending - decreased by 4.9% in 2020. MDD is an important measure of underlying demand and excludes the globalisation effects of trade in IPP and trade in aircraft by leasing companies from the standard Final Domestic Demand measure. 

In International Accounts results, the Current Account of the Balance of Payments recorded a deficit of €9.9 billion in flows with the rest of the world in 2020, a reduced deficit compared with 2019 (€70.8 billion), driven principally by higher merchandise and service exports and lower imports of IPP. In comparison, the modified Current Account balance, or CA*, which excludes the impact of re-domiciled companies, aircraft leasing companies and IPP, recorded a surplus of €24.0 billion in the year.”

On the revised Quarter 1 2021 results, Ms. Banim said: 

“Updated results for Quarter 1, 2021 show GDP increasing by 8.6% when compared with Quarter 4, 2020.  Factor income outflows were €10.4 billion higher than in the previous quarter, leading to an overall decline in GNP of 3.1% for the first quarter compared with the previous quarter. 

The impact of the COVID-19 restrictions varied across the sectors of the economy in Quarter 1, 2021.   In the most globalised sectors, growth continued with the Information & Communication sector growing by 14.1% in the quarter and Industry increasing by 7.9%. Sectors focused on the domestic market experienced varied effects in the quarter, with the Distribution, Transport, Hotels and Restaurants sector contracting by 4.6%, Construction contracting by 27.9% and the Finance & Insurance sector increasing by 2.2%. 

Looking at expenditure in the economy, personal spending (the PCE indicator) decreased by 5.9% as COVID-19 restrictions impacted consumption in the quarter. The MDD indicator decreased by 3.5% in Quarter 1, 2021.” 

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