Quarterly Accounts. Q1/2023

Catalonia's gross domestic product registered a year-over-year variation of 2.9% in the first quarter of 2023. In quarter-over-quarter terms, the variation was 1.1%.

From the point of view of demand, foreign trade is the component that contributed most to GDP growth in the first quarter. Total exports increased by 15.5%, compared with 7.5% in the previous quarter. This improvement is determined by the increase in exports of goods and services (12.3%) and foreign consumption (35.7%). Total imports grew by 8.7%, as imports of goods and services increased by 8.3% and national residents consumption abroad by 18.3%.

On the other hand, domestic demand grew by 0.8%, with a differentiated behaviour of the components: household consumer expenditure grew by 1.4%, final consumption expenditure by government was unchanged from the previous year and gross capital formation increased by 0.2%. Regarding this last component, investment in capital goods fell by 3.0%, which contrasts with the positive evolution of investment in construction (4.6%).

On the supply side, the industrial sector grew by 3.6%, while in the previous quarter it declined by 2.9%. The services sector grew by 3.0%, compared to 4.8% in the previous quarter. Construction grew by 4.5%, one point and three tenths above the previous quarter (3.2%), while the agricultural sector presented a year-over-year variation of −3.5% and maintained the negative evolution registered in previous quarters, but less intensively.

The Quarterly Accounts are consistent with the corresponding Annual Economic Accounts for Catalonia. Quarterly series should be considered provisional, as the necessary coherence between annual and quarterly estimates requires quarterly estimates to be modified, at least as long as the annual estimates are provisional.