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Key Findings

GDP grew by 12.0% in 2022 driven by strong expansion in multinational dominated sectors, while Modified Domestic Demand grew by 8.2%

Online ISSN: 2009-5775
CSO statistical publication, , 11am

Key Findings

  • Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increased by 12.0% in 2022 while Gross National Product (GNP) grew by 6.7%

  • Personal spending on goods and services increased by 6.6% in the year

  • Modified Domestic Demand (MDD), a broad measure of underlying domestic activity that covers personal, government, and investment spending, increased by 8.2% in 2022

  • Multinational dominated sectors grew by 19.4% in 2022 with all other sectors increasing by 7.2%

  • GDP increased by 0.3% quarter-on-quarter in Q4 2022 while GNP grew by 4.7%, see Editor’s Note below

Statistician's Comment

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) today (03 March 2023) published Quarterly National Accounts and International Accounts results for Quarter 4, 2022 and preliminary results for the Year 2022, following on from the Preliminary GDP Estimates for Q4 2022 and Year 2022 issued 30 January 2023 as a CSO Frontier Series output.

Assistant Director General with responsibility for Economic Statistics, Jennifer Banim, commented:

The impacts of the conflict in Ukraine, the rise in inflation and the continued unwinding of the COVID-19 related restrictions varied across the sectors of the economy in 2022 and today’s results show the overall annual impact and the underlying quarterly variations.

Growth continued in the more globalised sectors of the economy with Industry increasing by 23.0% and the Information & Communication sector up by 11.4% in 2022. A number of sectors focused on the domestic market experienced markedly higher levels of economic activity in the year, with the Construction sector growing by 14.4%, the Distribution, Transport, Hotels & Restaurants sector by 11.6%, and Arts & Entertainment increasing by 26.6%. All other sectors posted more modest single-digit growth in the year. Overall, multinational sector growth was 19.4% and in 2022, these sectors accounted for 55.7% of total value added in the economy, compared with a 53.0% share in 2021, a 49.5% share in 2020, and a 42.5% share in 2019.

Looking at expenditure in the economy, personal spending on goods and services (the PCE indicator) increased by 6.6% in 2022, while Government spending on goods and services increased by 0.7% in the year. Looking at PCE constant price levels over the past four years, personal spending reached €111.4 billion in 2022, a further recovery compared with the 2021 result of €104.5 billion, but 0.6% lower than the €112.1 billion pre-pandemic level of spending in 2019. PCE accounted for 23.5% of GDP in 2022, down from 24.7% of GDP in 2021, 26.8% in 2020, and 31.9% in 2019.

Overall, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is estimated to have increased by 12.0% in 2022, driven largely by growth of 28.5% in Investment in the year. Gross National Product (GNP) - a measure of economic activity that excludes the profits of multinationals - increased by 6.7% in 2022.”

Commenting on the impact of globalisation activities in 2022, Ms Banim said:

“Compared with 2021, investment in Intellectual Property Products (IPP) increased by 34.0% in 2022, driving an increase of 13.2% in Final Domestic Demand in the year. Modified Domestic Demand (MDD), a broad measure of underlying domestic demand that excludes IPP and aircraft-related globalisation effects, increased by 8.2% in 2022." 

Editor's Note

The updated estimated GDP figure for Q4 2022 is 0.3%. This compares with a Preliminary GDP Estimate for Q4 2022 of 3.5% published on 30 January 2023. The reason for the revision is that the updated GDP estimate for Q4 2022 of 0.3% is based on both Expenditure and Output data, while the Preliminary estimate, published as a CSO Frontier Series Output, was based predominantly on economic Output data.

Preliminary estimates are published under the CSO Frontier Series which may use new compilation processes which are under development and / or new or more timely data sources and therefore the results may be subject to revision over time. Publishing outputs under the Frontier Series allows the CSO to provide useful new information to users and receive informed feedback on these new methods and outputs whilst at the same time making sure that the limitations are well explained and understood. See a list of our CSO Frontier Outputs