Annual Economic and Financial Review -December 2018

A N T I G U A A N D B A R B U D A

Overview

construction; wholesale and retail trade; real estate, renting and business activities; hotels and restaurants; and transport, storage and communications sectors. Notably, every broad sector of the economy recorded positive growth. Fuelled primarily by higher food prices, the consumer price index rose by 1.5 per cent, on an end of period basis. Provisional fiscal data indicated a widening of the overall fiscal deficit on account of a substantial increase in current expenditure which surpassed the gains in current revenue. Consequently, the total disbursed outstanding debt of the public sector rose in 2018.

Favourable global economic conditions and a disaster free year contributed to a thriving environment for both the tradeable and non-tradeable sectors in Antigua and Barbuda. Preliminary real GDP estimates indicated that the economy expanded at an accelerated rate of 6.5 4 in 2018, relative to an expansion of 3.0 per cent in 2017. This was the strongest rate of growth since 2007. This accelerated pace of economic activity was primarily driven by robust performance in the

4 . In keeping with international standards, the ECCB updated the terminology used to describe economic activity in the ECCU. Accordingly, the Bank now reports real change in the economy using real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at market prices and not Gross Value Added (GVA) at basic prices as used in previous reports of the Annual Economic and Financial Review (AEFR). However, GVA will remain applicable for output by sector.

______________________________________________________________________________ 32 Eastern Caribbean Central Bank