GDP up 6.9% thanks to accommodation, food services and transportation

Gross Domestic Product last year reached €16,870.3 million, an increase of €1,868.4 million, or 12.5 per cent, when compared to 2021, the National Statistics Office said. The growth rate was 13.9% in the previous year.

In volume terms, GDP rose by 6.9 per cent last year.

It said that during 2022, Gross Value Added (GVA) rose by 13.7 per cent in nominal terms and 8.1 per cent in volume terms, when compared to 2021.

The drivers behind this 8.1 per cent growth were service activities, industry and agriculture and fishing, with a contribution of 7.7 percentage points, 0.7 percentage points and 0.1 percentage points, respectively.

Construction had a negative contribution of 0.3 percentage points.

Compared to 2021, service activities increased by 9.0 per cent, industry by 7.6 per cent and agriculture and fishing by 8.5 per cent in volume terms, whereas construction dropped by 7.0 per cent.

The increase in service activities was mainly driven by accommodation and food service activities (81.4 per cent), transportation and storage (23.3 per cent), administrative and support services activities (15.8 per cent), information and communication (7.9 per cent), and wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles (7.7 per cent).

Net taxes on products contributed negatively towards GDP growth, with a decrease of 5.9 per cent in volume terms.

The expenditure approach

The NSO explained that GDP is also calculated on the basis of the expenditure approach is another method used to calculate GDP, derived by adding final consumption expenditure of households, general government, and non-profit  institutions serving households (NPISHs), Gross capital formation and Net exports.

The contribution of domestic demand to the year-on-year GDP growth rate in volume terms was of 10.9 percentage points, of which 4.7 were due to final consumption expenditure and 6.1 to gross capital formation.

External demand registered a negative contribution of 4.0 percentage points, with 10.8 percentage points attributable to exports and 14.8 percentage points explained by imports.

In 2022, final consumption expenditure witnessed an increase of 7.6 per cent in volume terms. This was the result of increases in household expenditure, government expenditure and NPISHs expenditure by 10.3 per cent, 2.4 per cent and 3.7 per cent, respectively.

Gross fixed capital formation rose by 30.4 per cent in volume terms. This increase was mainly attributable to investment in transport equipment.