INE confirms: GDP grew 2.5% in the third quarter
The flash estimate from Statistics Portugal (INE) pointed to an economic growth of 2.5% between July and September, a percentage which was confirmed this Thursday.
After the 2.8% and 3% growth in the first two quarters of the year, the Portuguese economy slowed down. INE confirmed this Thursday that GDP had an homologous increase of 2.5% in the third quarter of 2017. These data make it possible for the Government to comply with the 2.6% yearly growth goal set on the 2018 State Budget.
Private consumption accelerated when investment slowed down. “The positive contribution of domestic demand (3.3 pp) increased with an acceleration of private consumption while Investment decelerated“, is stated in the Quarterly National Accounts disclosed this Thursday by INE. Net external demand made a negative contribution to the third quarter (-0.8 pp), contrary to what had happen in the second quarter.
After two quarters with negative homologous variations, public consumption grew 0.2% in comparison to the third quarter of last year. Public consumption accelerated to 2.5%, mainly because of a 2% growth in expenses with durable goods in the second quarter to 8.1% in the third quarter — because of the acceleration of the purchase of cars, INE specifies.
As for investment, in spite of having decelerated, it still registers a strong deceleration in the third quarter: from a 35.6% homologous variation rate to 14.3%. In addition, the construction and machinery component has also accelerated. The only component that increased was the intellectual property products.
And what about international commerce? This year’s tendency was reflected on GDP: imports are growing at a higher pace than exports. The higher increase of exports of services (which include tourism) was not enough to compensate for the impacts of the acceleration of goods. Even so, it should be noted that “In the third quarter 2017, gains in terms of trade occurred, conversely with the three previous quarters”.
The quarter-on-quarter growth accelerated to 0.5%, 0.2 percentage points higher than in the second quarter. ” The positive contribution of domestic demand was 0.7 percentage points in the third quarter (0.6 percentage points in the previous quarter), due to the evolution of private consumption and to a reduction in Investment, contrary to what had been registered in the previous quarter“, INE explains. The quarter-on-quarter variation also had the negative contribution (-0.2%) of net external demand.
