INE confirms growth of 0.8% in the 3.First quarter – the Observer

exports gave the motto and the economy grew more than expected and above the average that has occurred in recent years, says the INE, which confirms the growth in numbers posted for fifteen days, from 0.8% quarter-over-quarter and 1.6% compared with the same period a year ago. Improving domestic demand also contributed, albeit on a smaller scale.

Now with numbers: the economy grows more than expected because of the contribution to growth from net external demand on the Portuguese economy increased of 0.4 percentage points to 1.3 percentage points. This means that exports have increased sharply, more than the imports.

Even from quarter to quarter, highlighted by a sharp fall in the contribution of domestic demand, which goes from a positive value, by 0.4 percentage points, to a sharp fall, of 0.6 percentage points. Moreover, the domestic demand only gave a help to the growth on the previous year and was short of just 0.1 percentage points.

This means that domestic demand may be slightly better than a year ago, but began to fall and is at a level worse than the last few quarters. This is due to the fall of investment and of public consumption. The investment has been record numbers of weak throughout the year and now, with a brake on public consumption, which must grow at the end of the year for the Government to meet the goal of deficit can worsen even more the numbers of domestic demand.

The domestic demand not only fell over because the consumption expenditure of households continued to increase, consumption, which should accelerate in the latter part of the year with the arrival of the holiday season, and with the families they have in their hands the most income (payment of grants christmas).

Sale of F-16 aircraft to Romania without impact on the GDP

Came to be a subject of exchange of accusations between the opposition and the Government (and the HP), but the INE stops a clarification now. The sale of military aircraft to Romania, which was already expected to happen this year, it will have an almost null impact on GDP.

This happens because, despite counting as exports, the sale of the aircraft, it also counts as real, that is, has a null impact under the heading of investment, which in turn takes the GDP what the export gives. The rules of european statistics impose that this may be so because at the time that the aircraft were purchased abroad were also registered as import and investment. If it is almost null when they arrived, also the is when they go though.

The rules for registering in the national accounts this type of investment are determined at the european level, with the participation of Portugal. Due to the material the military has already been made several changes to the rules, especially in the form of accounting the deficit.