GDP drops 15 percent
during 2019’s last quarter

Economy records full-year

contraction of 6.7 percent

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is estimated to have recorded a real decline of 6.7 percent in 2019 after taking out the impact of an inflation rate of 4.5 percent, according to the GDP report for the fourth quarter of 2019 issued by the Central Administration of Statistics (CAS). CAS said that these are provisional numbers.

Nominal GDP, which is not adjusted for inflation, shrank by 2.5 percent to $53.6 billion.

The economic situation worsened in the last quarter of 2019 with real GDP plunging by 15 percent.The decline registered in the first three quarters was three percent, seven percent, and two percent respectively.

Real GDP of the construction sector has registered the sharpest full-year drop in 2019 plunging by 29 percent. The two sectors that have witnessed real growth in their activities last year were real estate (three percent) and agriculture, livestock, forestry, and fishing (six percent).


Source: Central Administration of Statistics

The recessionary trend was already in full swing prior to the anti-government protests that started in October 2019. GDP shrank by 3.6 percent in the 12-month period ending in June 2019.

GDP had contracted by 1.9 percent in 2018 driven by a decline in household consumption and in construction and trade activities.