Portugal’s GDP soars 13.2% in Q3, but falls 5.8% compared to 2019

  • ECO News
  • 30 October 2020

Portugal's GDP registered a year-on-year reduction of 5.8% in the third quarter. However, In the quarter-on-quarter rates of change, there was a growth of 13.2%.

Between July and September, the Portuguese economy soared 13.2% compared to the previous quarter, a development explained by the country’s lack of definition and economic recovery. In contrast to the same period of the previous year, there was a fall of 5.8%, after having registered a historical contraction between April and June. The data was published on Friday by the National Statistics Institute (INE).

According to the report published by INE on Friday, the “less intense reduction in GDP” in the third quarter of the year occurred in the context of the progressive reopening of economic activity. The second quarter – a period in which there was a historical contraction of the economy – had been affected by “the application of measures to contain the spread of Covid-19.”

The evolution of GDP, between July and September, was mainly due to the behaviour of domestic demand, the Statistics Office points out, an indicator that “registered a considerably less negative contribution to the year-on-year rate of change of GDP than that observed in the previous quarter, mainly reflecting the lower contraction in private consumption.”

In the report released on Friday, INE has also reviewed the last quarter’s data, showing that, after all, the GDP year-on-year contraction was 16.4% and not 16.3%, as it had previously indicated. However, it maintains the quarter-on-quarter rates of change of 13.9%.

For the year as a whole, the Portuguese government estimates that GDP will fall 8.5%, recovering 5.4% in 2021.