Bay Area economy grows at nearly triple U.S. rate

People enter the renovated marketplace in the Ferry Building in San Francisco on June 9, 2017. People enter the renovated marketplace in the Ferry Building in San Francisco on June 9, 2017. Photo: Nicole Boliaux / The Chronicle 2017 Buy photo Photo: Nicole Boliaux / The Chronicle 2017 Image 1 of / 15 Caption Close Bay Area economy grows at nearly triple U.S. rate 1 / 15 Back to Gallery

The Bay Area economy grew by 5.2 percent in 2016, nearly three times faster than the national rate, according to a report released Monday by the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy.

The Bay Area’s gross domestic product was $781 billion in 2016, making the region larger than the economy of the Netherlands.

The San Jose metro area, which is home to large tech companies such as Cisco and Apple, had the strongest year-over-year growth in the state at 5.9 percent. The gains were due in large part to its local tech industry, the report said. The state of California grew 2.9 percent in 2016.

Gains in the San Francisco-Oakland metropolitan area, which ranked second in California to the San Jose area, were also driven by the tech and finance industry.

While jobs continue to spread across the state to areas previously lagging behind — including Inland Empire, Butte County and some parts of the San Joaquin Valley — job growth in the Bay Area and California has slowed down in 2017.

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“It is very likely that GDP growth in the state and many regions in 2017 will be below the 2015 and (2016) levels,” the report’s authors wrote.