He Central Bank of the Dominican Republic (BCRD) reported today that it makes available to the general public and economic agents the results of the reference year change project (PCR) of the national accounts of the Dominican Republic, establishing 2018 as the new reference year of the System of National Accounts of the Dominican Republic.
In this sense, the institution indicated that the new annual series of the gross domestic product (GDP) for the years 2018-2020, as well as the high frequency series of the quarterly GDP and the monthly indicator of economic activity (IMAE) 2018-2024 associated with the new reference. These series are available on the website of the BCRD.
- The national accounts were prepared in accordance with the guidelines contained in the System of National Accounts 2008 (SCN2008), manual sponsored by the United Nations (UN), the European Economic Commission (EEC), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB).
Likewise, he pointed out that for the preparation new national nomenclature of products and economic activities of the Dominican Republic (NNPA), the International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC) revision 4 and the Central Product Classification (CCP) version 2.1 were taken into account.
He added that, for the estimates of the series of economic situation indicators, quarterly GDP and IMAE, the recommendations of the Quarterly National Accounts Manual 2017 from the IMF.
He BCRD reported that he was accompanied by international consultants and experts endorsed by the UN and with vast experience in missions of National Accounts.
The institution also received advice from experts in National Accounts through the Regional Technical Assistance Center for Central America, Panama and the Dominican Republic (Captac-DR), a dependency of the IMF.
He said that this change of reference is framed in the international recommendations that suggest a periodic update of the national accounts approximately every 10 years. This practice allows for the incorporation of variations in relative prices over time, new sources of information, advances in technological processes, as well as new products in the economy, reflecting the transformations in the country’s economic structure.
He assured that the execution of the reference year change project It was based on important statistical research, among which the updating of the National Survey of Household Expenses and Income (Engih 2018), the X National Census of Population and Housing 2022, the National Survey of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises stand out. (Enmipymes) and other specialized sector surveys.
Likewise, he reported that there were detailed sources of information from the conglomerate of the productive sectors:
- Exhaustive investigations of companies representative of the economic activities of the market, various administrative records of companies and public institutions, financial statements and budget executions of the General Government, statistics collected and prepared by the BCRD (Consumer Price Index Survey, ENCFT National Continuous Workforce Survey, Tourism Expenditure and Motivation Survey, National Health Survey and External Sector Statistics).
He BCRD highlighted that in this new reference compilation there are supply-use tables composed of 70 economic activities; Comparatively, this represents a much greater level of detail with respect to the tables published in the previous reference, whose breakdown was 35 activities.
For the preparation of the national nomenclature of products and economic activities The degree of relevance and availability of information on each product at the national level was taken into account in order to follow up on those that have a significant weight in the Dominican economy.
Services
Likewise, the new national accounts reveal that services have continued the trend that has been observed in recent decades, of having a greater impact on the economy. Its participation in GDP reached 62.5% in 2018, which represents a change of 5.6 percentage points compared to 2007.
Within this sector, significant increases were recorded in the weighting of trade activities within the GDP, which went from 9.1% in 2007 to 10.9% in 2018. real estate activities and rental (7.7% to 8.7%) and other market service activities (8.0% to 8.5%).
The results indicate that construction increased its contribution to GDP from 10.4% in 2007 to 11.6% in 2018. He explained that this is due to greater diversification in infrastructure works, with a greater participation of residential projects, which was verified in research carried out for this sector, as well as as well as through surveys corresponding to the cost structures by type of work and valuation of the buildings.
In addition, by expanding the coverage of information sources, more detailed data was available for estimating the production of services specialized in construction (subcontracting), generating a recomposition of the products of the aforementioned activity
The national accounts associated with the new reference year exhibit an average real GDP growth rate of 3.4% for the period 2018-2023, which turns out to be equal to the average real expansion reported in that five-year period with the national accounts referenced to the year 2007.
He highlighted that both the recession caused in 2020 by the COVID-19 pandemicas the recovery in 2021 turned out to be more pronounced in real terms, presenting a similar average real growth in subsequent years, including the first three quarters of 2024.
It is projected that nominal GDP at the end of 2024, as in the case of national accounts of the previous reference year, is around 124.5 billion dollars, although with changes in the composition of the value added in different economic activities.
Economic growth
Regarding the recent behavior of the dominican economythe growth of real GDP under the new quarterly accounts referenced to the year 2018 shows an average interannual variation of 5.2% in January-September 2024, which was slightly higher than the 5.1% that was recently announced for real GDP in the same period, calculated with the previous reference year 2007.
“It is important to highlight that, a novelty within the compilation of the national accounts quarterly is the distinction of professional services as an individual activity, separate from other market services activities,” said the BCRD through a note.
He added that these new national accounts They constitute another example of the effort that the Central Bank performs in the continuous updating of its statistical collection. “It responds to strict adherence to the value of transparency and is a reflection of the importance of the timely dissemination of the main data that is officially published.”
He stated that this fact has been recognized by the international organizations that govern the regulations and dictate the guidelines to be applied by the countries.
In this regard, he said that recently the deputy head of the Division of the Department of IMF statisticsMinsuk Kim, has described the Dominican Republic as “exemplary performance” within the framework of the Enhanced General Data Dissemination System (e-GDDS) and thanked the support of the BCRD to the IMF’s initiatives to promote data transparency.
He stated that “the solid performance is a clear example of the commitment of the Dominican Republic with quality statistics and their ability to make the necessary changes.”
More information
He Central Bank He also reported that as part of the products associated with the reference compilation, there are currently works in progress such as:
- The preparation of the Integrated Economic Accounts (CEI),
- The Industry-Institutional Sector Cross Classification (CCIS)
- The homogeneous series 1991-2024 of the quarterly Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
These works, according to the BCRDwill be published at a later stage along with additional methodological details on the elaboration of the change of reference year of the National Accounts.
He Central Bank “specially” thanked all those companies and public institutions and private companies, researchers and specialists who provided support by providing the information that made possible the results of the publication that is put into circulation today.
