Planning Board revises data for ’16; P.R. GDP drops 1.1%
Planning Board President María del C. Gordillo
The Puerto Rico Planning Board revised the island’s macroeconomic data for the end of fiscal 2016, reflecting a decrease in the Gross Domestic Product of 1.1 percent.
In addition, agency President María del C. Gordillo said the review of the GDP at constant prices for fiscal years 2014 and 2015 fell 1.8 percent and 0.7 percent respectively.
“These data represent the behavior of the economy of Puerto Rico and give us a clear picture of where our economy is, which helps the government and private sector in making its determinations,” she said.
The agency said one of the weightiest reasons for the GDP drop is that one of the main macroeconomic variables is the personal consumption expenditure (main component of domestic demand), represented a total of $61.1 billion at current Fiscal 2016 prices.
At real prices, a decrease of 1.7 percent was estimated when compared to the total for Fiscal 2015. In addition, for Fiscal 2016 a drop was recorded in personal consumption expenditures on durable and nondurable goods. However, there was an increase in personal consumption expenditures for services, the Planning Board said.
The amount of consumption expenditures by the central government and municipalities for Fiscal 2016 was $8.6 billion at current prices. A 4.8 percent decline at constant prices was also estimated for that year, when compared with the total for Fiscal 2015 in this variable.
Moreover, for Fiscal 2016 total gross domestic investment was estimated at $8.6 billion at current prices, reflecting a reduction of 2 percent over Fiscal 2015. This variable at constant prices represented a negative growth of 2 percent compared to 2015.
Within the total for Fiscal 2016, construction investment reached $2.8 billion or -10.7 percent reflecting a decline for the fourth consecutive year. At real prices, this represented a decline of 10.3 percent over the same period of prior fiscal year, the fifth consecutive fiscal year in which a decrease is estimated for values at constant prices, for investments in construction.
As for transactions with the rest of the world, there were estimated increases in both sales of goods and services as well as on the side of purchases from abroad.
For Fiscal 2016, the total was $81.2 billion (an increase at constant prices of 3.2 percent compared with the previous fiscal year) and $89.4 billion (an increase at constant prices of 0.4 percent compared to Fiscal 2015,) respectively.
Net revenue reached $55.4 billion or -0.4 percent at current prices during Fiscal 2016; while disposable personal income was $61.6 billion, the Planning Board concluded.
