Lisbon, Jan. 30, 2025 (Lusa) - The Portuguese economy grew by 2.7% year-on-year and 1.5% quarter-on-quarter in the last quarter of 2024, registering Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth of 1.9% for the year as a whole, INE announced on Thursday.
The year-on-year growth of 2.7% in the fourth quarter of last year was 0.7 percentage points higher than in the previous quarter, while the 1.5% quarterly growth followed a 0.3% rise in the previous quarter. Volume growth of 1.9% for the whole of 2024, on the other hand, represents a slowdown compared to the 2.5 % increase recorded in 2023.
In the 30-day flash estimate released today, the National Statistics Institute (INE) revised upwards, by 0.1 percentage points, the year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter GDP growth rates for the third quarter of 2024 released in the Quarterly National Accounts by Institutional Sector of 23 December, after incorporating new primary information, namely regarding international trade in goods.
The INE data for the whole of last year confirms the projections of economists consulted by the Lusa news agency, who expected year-on-year GDP growth of between 1.5 and 1.9%, and exceeds those of the government, which, in the state budget for 2025 (OE2025), projected growth of 1.8%.
As for the figures for the last quarter of the year, the estimates of economists consulted by Lusa ranged from 1.2% to 2.1% year-on-year and 0.2% to 1% quarter-on-quarter.
The minister of finance had already signalled on 15 January, at a hearing in the Budget, Finance and Public Administration Committee, that the figures for the fourth quarter were "significantly good, with economic acceleration".
The INE's preliminary figures do not yet detail the evolution of the various components of GDP, but the statistical organisation says that "the positive contribution of domestic demand to the year-on-year change in GDP increased in the fourth quarter, as a result of the acceleration in private consumption".
Net external demand's contribution to the year-on-year change in GDP "remained negative, reflecting the more intense growth in imports of goods and services compared to exports".
For its part, the positive contribution of domestic demand to the year-on-year change in the GDP "fell in the fourth quarter due to the reduction in investment, mainly reflecting the negative contribution of the change in inventories largely associated with the behaviour of international trade flows".
According to INE, imports of goods and services fell in the fourth quarter, leading to a positive contribution from net external demand, after having been negative in the previous two quarters.
In 2024 as a whole, domestic demand made a positive contribution to the annual change in volume of GDP that was higher than in the previous year, "reflecting the acceleration in final consumption expenditure, while investment slowed down".
In turn, the contribution of net external demand was negative, after having been positive in the previous two years, with imports of goods and services accelerating in volume, while exports maintained growth close to that seen in the previous year.
PD/AYLS // AYLS
Lusa
