GNI*, a key deglobalised measure of Ireland’s economic performance, expanded by 5.0% in 2023 driven by growth in domestic dominated sectors.
Personal spending on goods and services, a key measure of domestic economic activity, increased by 4.8% in the year.
Modified Domestic Demand (MDD), a broad measure of underlying domestic activity that covers personal, government and investment spending, rose by 2.6% in 2023.
Multinational-dominated sectors contracted by 16.2% in 2023, driving a fall in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 5.5% in the year, with domestic sectors increasing by 6.1%.
Total Exports fell by 5.8% in 2023 driven by a decline in Goods Exports of 13.8% while Total Imports grew by 1.2%.
The GDP deflator, a key indicator of average prices across the economy, recorded a 3.6% increase in 2023, a deceleration from the 6.8% increase posted in the year 2022.
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Statistician's Comment
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (12 July 2024) published the Annual National Accounts (ANA) results for the year 2023.
Assistant Director General with responsibility for Economic Statistics, Chris Sibley, commented:
"The impact of ongoing global events and decelerating inflation varied across the sectors of the economy in 2023. In the Annual National Accounts results published today, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is estimated to have contracted by 5.5% in 2023, driven by a fall of 16.2% in Multinational sector activity. Gross National Product (GNP) – a measure of economic activity that excludes the profits of multi-nationals – grew by 5.5% in the year. Decreased multi-national profit outflows of €48.5 billion in 2023 compared with 2022 caused the divergence between GDP and GNP in the year.
The more globalised sectors of the economy contracted for the first time since 2013 with Industry (excl. Construction) shrinking by 21.7% compared with 2022. The Information & Communication sector continued to grow however, increasing by 7.4% in 2023. Overall, the multinational sector contraction was 16.2% and in 2023, these sectors accounted for 46.6% of total value added in the economy, compared with a 52.5% share in 2022.
There was a mixed picture for sectors focused on the domestic market in 2023 with economic activity in the Agriculture, Forestry & Fisheries sector growing by 14.8% in the year, the Financial & Insurance sector expanding by 14.1%, and Real Estate Activities increasing by 10.9%. However, the Construction sector fell by 2.9% in 2023 while the Distribution, Transport, Hotels & Restaurants sector posted a decline of 1.0% in the year.
Looking at expenditure in the economy, personal spending on goods and services (the PCE indicator) rose by 4.8% in 2023, while Government spending on goods and services increased by 4.3% in the year. Examining PCE constant price levels over the past four years, personal spending reached €141.3 billion in 2023, exceeding the €123.6 billion pre-pandemic peak level of spending in 2019 by 14.3%. PCE accounted for 28.7% of GDP in 2023, a higher percentage compared with years 2020 to 2022 but lower than the 32.1% posted in 2019.”
Commenting on the impact of globalisation and the indicators of underlying domestic activity, Chris Sibley said:
“Today’s results include estimates for GNI*, the indicator designed to exclude globalisation effects disproportionately impacting Irish economic results. In constant prices, GNI* expanded by 5.0% in 2023. Today’s results show the transition in current prices from a GDP level of €510.0 billion in 2023 to a GNI* level of €290.9 billion. They also tell us that Ireland’s GDP exceeded €0.5 trillion for the second year in a row in 2023.
Net National Income (NNI), an important internationally comparable indicator of underlying or de-globalised activity from the National Accounts framework that closely mirrors the GNI* series, stood at €260.1 billion in current prices in 2023. Between 2022 and 2023, NNI at constant prices rose by 7.0%.
Modified Domestic Demand (MDD) – a modified measure of personal, government and investment spending – increased by 9.5% at current prices and 2.6% in real terms in 2023. MDD is an important measure of underlying demand and excludes the globalisation effects of trade in intellectual property products (IPP) and trade in aircraft by leasing companies from the standard Final Domestic Demand measure."
More commentary is available in the Press Release also issued today. This includes commentary on the updated Quarterly National Accounts and International Accounts for Quarter 1 2024 which are also published today.