Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

Current GDP News

Gross Domestic Product 2018 Highlights

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) estimation for 2018 has been undertaken by the Vanuatu Statistics Office (VNSO) and the results warrant this preliminary release. The compilation of national accounts statistics is a dynamic process, and therefore needs to adapt to reflect a variety of measures and indicators consistent with the development and structural changes in the economy over a period of time. It is therefore expected that revisions and updates are made to previous period as new source data are brought into the model and validated. This release however concentrates on GDP by production as the official estimates but continues to compute and monitor GDP from expenditure side to which it provide systematic checks in consolidating the two approaches.
This preliminary release comprises GDP derived from production and expenditure estimates in both current and constant (or real 2006 prices). Vanuatu National Statistics Office acknowledges the invaluable contribution from the data providers who have allocated time and resources to provide statistical information and VNSO staff for their dedication despite the challenges faced during this undertaking. Nonetheless, it is to be noted that the timeliness of the GDP estimates has always been hampered by factors associated with the inflow of information from data sources.

The preliminary estimates for 2018 GDP, Vanuatu’s economy continued to expand showing positive growth for more than ten consecutive years. The economy grew by 2.9 per cent in 2018 reflecting a slow performance over the previous year. When compared to 2017, value added decrease by 1.5 percentage points.  Chart 1 shows year-on-year growth rates measured by percentage change in constant 2006 prices. The slowdown in performance for 2018 can be attributed to the huge decline in services and agriculture while industry has dropped but not too significant compared to services and agriculture.

Read More