Trinidad: Economic growth in 2022 better than expected

The Trinidad and Tobago government Friday said the latest statistics for actual economic growth for 2022, are better than previously estimated.

The Ministry of Finance in a statement Friday said that the figures published by the Central Statistical Office (CSO) shows that Instead of a decline of -0.1 per cent in real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Trinidad and Tobago in the first quarter of 2022, the CSO has now advised that “our economy actually grew by 1.6 per cent in that quarter.

“Further, according to the CSO, real GDP grew by a substantial 6.6 per cent in the second quarter of 2022. This means that for the first half of 2022, according to the CSO, real GDP grew by a healthy 4.1 per cent, almost twice the growth figure previously estimated for that period.”

The Ministry of Finance said what is interesting and encouraging in the latest data published by the CSO “is that it indicates that the non-energy sector experienced real GDP growth of 4.6 per cent in the first quarter of 2022 and real GDP growth of 10.5 per cent in the second quarter of 2022, yielding strong economic growth in the non-energy sector of 7.5 per cent in the first half of 2022.

“This data demonstrates that our economy is recovering from the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic and that our diversification efforts are bearing fruit,” the Ministry of Finance said, noting that the data also indicates that the country’s nominal GDP, which is used to calculate our Debt-to GDP Ratio is also better than previously estimated.

“In fact, preliminary calculations indicate that nominal GDP for Trinidad and Tobago in the first half of 2022 was three billion dollars (One TT dollar=US$0.16 cents) more than previously calculated,” the ministry added.

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