The National Statistics Office (NSO met with the Central Bank of Solomon Islands and the Economic Reform Unit within the Ministry of Finance and Treasury to discuss the production of the new 2018-2020 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) estimates by the NSO before the official release planned from Tuesday 12 April, 2022.
Chief Statistician Economic Andrew Kakate led the discussions on Monday 11th April 2022 with the support of the NSO Advisor Dr. Willie Lahari at the NSO office that also included the Government Statistician Douglas Kimi. Those who participated included Economic Statisticians from the Economic Unit, and Economists from the Central Bank of Solomon Islands, CBSI and the Economic Reform Unit within the Ministry of Finance and Treasury who were in attendance.
Mr Kakate said CBSI and ERU also produce their own produce GDP estimates for internal use and mainly for forecasting purposes and for monetary and fiscal policy and that it was useful for NSO to be able to compare its estimates with theirs and also draw from feedback on any economic issues that emanated out of the figures.
“The talks focused mainly on economic growth rates by various industry and whether these figures met with economic expectation and assumptions by the CBSI and the ERU, especially if the movements in growth were within expected directions and magnitudes when looking at the numbers”, he said.
“The discussion was also important to take into account reasons as to why the GDP numbers may appear different or similar especially during the Covid-19 impact in 2020.”
Primula Mua and Kevis Kimasaru from ERU said that ERU’s estimates closely correspond to NSO’s actual GDP figures.
Katie Longeau from CBSI also echoed similar sentiments.
The group wrapped up their meeting with an agreement to jointly collaborate on future projects including the technical assistance on the supply-use tables and input-output tables and also the support for the proposed 2023/4 Household Income and Expenditure Survey to update the GDP household consumption estimates.
Overall, it was a successful discussion.
NSO will release the GDP estimates for 2020 on Tuesday 12 April 2022.
-SINSO Press