Our view: The growth in 2023 was strongly driven by agriculture, which grew by 15.1%. For 2024, we expect agriculture to have a negative performance. However, we foresee stable service performance due to the recent increase in consumer incomes and better credit conditions due to the monetary easing process.
GDP for the last quarter of 2023 remained stable compared to the previous quarter. Compared to 2022, there was a growth of 2.9%.
In the last quarter of 2023, industry advanced 1.3% QoQ, and there was a slight increase in services (0.3%), and a significant decline in agriculture (-5.3%). The increase in industrial activities was driven by the extractive industry (4.7%) and Construction (4.2%). In services, other activities and financial, insurance, and related services advanced by 1.2% and 0.7% respectively, but on the other hand, trade (-0.8%), transportation, storage, and mail (-0.6%), and communication (-0.1%) contributed negatively to the final sector data. The negative performance of agriculture can be explained by the bumper crop that occurred earlier in the year.
Expenditure perspective: there was growth in Gross Fixed Capital Formation and Government Consumption Expenditure (0.9%) and a decline in Household Consumption Expenditure (-0.2%).
External sector: Exports of Goods and Services remained flat, with a 0.1% increase compared to the previous quarter. Meanwhile, Imports of Goods and Services grew by 0.9%.
