Seasonally adjusted GDP increased by 0.8% over the previous quarter and by 3.6% over the fourth quarter of 2017.

External demand

Compared to the last two years, particularly all 2017 and the first half of 2018, the growth of exports and imports in the last quarter of 2018 was moderate. Exports increased by 6.8% and imports by 6.6%. External trade balance contribution to GDP growth was positive at 0.7 of a percentage point.

Domestic consumption

In the last quarter of 2018 domestic consumption increased by 3.7%, which is similar to growth in the second quarter of 2018; in the first and third quarters the increase was even higher (more than 5%).

The most important components of domestic consumption are household final consumption expenditure and gross fixed capital formation. Household final consumption expenditure increased by 2.1% in the last quarter of 2018, which is a bigger increase than in the previous two quarters. Gross fixed capital formation increased by 8.2%, which is somewhat lower than in the previous quarters of 2018 (the growth rates were between 10% and 14%).

GDP up by 4.5% in 2018

GDP at current prices amounted to EUR 45,948 million, which is by 6.9% more than in 2017. In volume terms GDP increased by 4.5% (in 2017 by 4.9%).

External demand had a positive impact on economic growth even though the growth of exports was more moderate than in 2017; in 2018 exports increased by 7.2%. Domestic demand has an increasingly significant role; it increased by 4.6%, which is the highest growth after 2014. Similarly to 2017, in 2018 too, gross fixed capital formation and final consumption expenditure had a positive impact on economic growth. Gross fixed capital formation increased by 10.6% (in 2017 10.7%), final consumption expenditure increased by 2.3% (in 2017 1.5%).

Total employment in 2018 amounted to 1,017,000 persons, which is the highest number in the last 24 years (since the data on employment are available). Total employment increased by 3.0% or 28,000 persons over 2017.

Benchmark revision 1995– 2018

This year’s revision at the end of August will be different from the regular one because of the longer revised period (from 1995 on) and more revision steps. The reason is harmonisation of the data and also harmonisation of the benchmark year among EU Member States. The majority of the planned revisions are derived from the last cycle of methodology verification of estimation of gross national income and government finance accounts. These data are used for administrative purposes of the EU.

Notes

Unless otherwise specified, all comparisons in this text refer to original data, to volume or real changes and to changes compared with the same quarter of the previous year.

More detailed data

More detailed data including time series are available in the SI-STAT Database.