The performance of the construction sector at the end of the year explained the acceleration registered in the country’s economic activity up to December 2017.
From a report by the Central Bank of Costa Rica (Banco Central de Costa Rica):
The country’s production of goods and services, as measured by the cycle trend series of the Monthly Economic Activity Index (IMAE), registered an interannual and average variation of 3.5% and 3.1%, respectively, in December 2017.
The acceleration observed in the indicator, for the fourth consecutive month, is mainly due to the behavior of the construction industry. The information available for this activity shows that construction slowed from January 2017 to August, coinciding with a deceleration observed in the general indicator. As of October, both the construction and the IMAE reversed this behavior.
According to the trend cycle series, most of the economic activities presented positive interannual rates in December 2017, highlighting the manufacturing activities and business services as the industries with the greatest contribution to the variation of the indicator.
View the full report here (PDF file)
The IMAE includes monthly indicators for the following industries: agriculture, forestry, hunting and fishing; mining and quarring; manufacturing industries; electricity and water; construction; wholesale and retail trade; transport, storage, communications; financial services and bussiness services. No monthly indicator is available for activities involving real estate services, public administration services, hotels and restaurants, and communal, social, and personal services; thus their trends are introduced into the IMAE by expressing in monthly terms the projected annual rate of change in value added for the current year; for previous years the same procedure, while using the observed rate of change in value added.
