Angola’s economy contracted 2.5 percent in 2017

Angola’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2017 recorded a year-on-year contraction of 2.5 percent, as a result of updates to the activities of the Public Administration and Manufacturing Industry, according to the preliminary data of the Annual National Accounts, published on Friday in Luanda by the National Statistics Institute (INE).

The Annual National Accounts for the 2009 to 2016 period and the fourth quarter and full-year of 2017, although preliminary, were presented after a one-year and three-month interregnum, as the last time INE presented accounts was in February 2017, when it published quarterly GDP figures.

INE reported that Angola’s gross domestic product (GDP) contracted by 4.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2017, a negative variation attributable to subsidies (-73.3 percent), to financial intermediation, insurance and pensions (-23.5 percent), fishing (-20.3 percent), public administration and compulsory social security (-17.9 percent) and retail (-13.5 percent).

In the fourth quarter, the activities that contributed most and were important factors for the performance of economic activity were extraction and refining of crude oil and natural gas with 38 percent, followed by civil construction with 14 percent.

Angola’s economic growth decelerated between 2013 and 2015, falling to negative growth of -2.6 percent in 2016, a tenth of a percentage point more than in 2017, according to the Annual National Accounts of 2009-2016. MDT/Macauhub