High Level Summary of Statistics Trend Last update: Wednesday, August 06, 2008
GDP Growth - EU Comparison
The small EU countries are defined here as Austria, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal, and Sweden. Figures for the small EU countries are produced using a weighted approach which accounts for the relative sizes of the countries within this group. Annual Gross Domestic Product ( GDP) growth rates for Scotland and the small EU countries are calculated on a rolling four quarters on four quarters basis - this compares annual growth to the year end of the most recent quarter.
Over the period 1999Q4 to 2008Q1 annual GDP growth rates in the small EU countries have generally exceeded Scottish GDP growth rates. However, over the period 2003Q3 to 2004Q2 Scottish GDP growth rates exceeded small EU countries growth rates. The most recent data show that annual GDP growth to 2008Q1 in Scotland was 2.1%, compared to the growth in the small EU countries of 2.6% - this resulted in a gap of 0.5 percentage points between Scottish and small EU countries' GDP growth rates. The gap has narrowed from the previous period, 2007Q4, where Scottish GDP grew at an annual rate of 2.0% compared to 3.3% in the small EU countries - a gap of 1.3 percentage points.
The Scottish Government has set a target to match the GDP growth rate of the small independent EU countries by 2017.
Source: Scottish Government, OCEA, OECD
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