New Irish data releases

A busy day for CSO releases.   The quarterly national accounts are published here, while the BOP data are here. In addition, the CSO released the 2006-2007 data for services trade, which can found here.

A striking feature of the data is the wide divergence between GNP and GDP for Ireland, with the most worrying data point being the 0.9 percent decline in GNP during the 3rd quarter (corresponding to an approximately 3.6 percent contraction at an annualised rate).   The widening of the current account deficit, despite the slowdown, signals the external competitiveness problem.

One reply on “New Irish data releases”

It’s a bit hard to know how much weight to give to the seasonally adjusted Q-on-Q figures. The series for GDP growth measured this way (page 6) is very volatile. The Y-on-Y figures (page 5) might be the way to go. What strikes me about the Y-on-Y data is that export growth was still positive in Q3, while imports tanked. So net exports have improved. At least to date, the collapse in activity reflects a drop in domestic demand.

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