Cayman’s Per Capita GDP Reached $67,887 in 2017

The Cayman Islands’ System of National Accounts Report 2017 which presents the economic performance or Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the Islands is released today.

The Report presents the significant results of the project conducted by the ESO over a three-year period with the assistance of the Caribbean Technical Assistance Centre. The project aimed to align the GDP estimates of the Cayman Islands with the latest international methodology (SNA 2008) for estimating GDP. The project also sought to reflect the latest structure of the economy in estimating real GDP (or GDP adjusted for inflation) by using 2015 as the new base year, rather than the old base year (2007). The project made use of  detailed information from the annual Business Survey and the Household Budget Survey that were both conducted in 2015 and other various sources.

The various conceptual, methodological and data improvements reflected in the rebased Cayman Islands’ GDP series resulted in a 27.5 percent increase in the level of nominal GDP for 2015 (the new base year).  This resulted in an increase in the 2015 per capita GDP at purchaser’s prices to CI$66,438 as compared to CI$52,115 in the old series.

The increase in the rebased GDP series for the Cayman Islands is not unusual as other countries which implemented recent rebasing and application of SNA 2008 showed the following increase in nominal GDP: Bahamas +27.6% in 2012 GDP; Nigeria +89.2% in 2013 GDP; Tanzania +27.8% in 2013 GDP; Maldives +19.5% in 2014 GDP; Zambia +25.2% in 2010 GDP; and Kenya +25.3% in 2013 GDP.

The concepts and methodology applied to the base year (2015) estimate was used in estimating the GDP in current purchasers’ prices for 2017, which stands at CI$4,284.7 million. This translates to a nominal per capita GDP amounting to CI$67,887 in 2017, an increase of $1,325.9 (or 2.0%) compared to the rebased 2016 per capita GDP.

Real GDP (or GDP adjusted for inflation) grew by 3.0 percent in 2017, which exceeds the advance GDP growth estimate for 2017 of 2.9 percent, but is marginally lower than the 3.1 percent posted in 2016.

The growth in 2017 outpaced the growth estimated for the USA (2.2%), the Euro Area (2.4%), Latin America & the Caribbean (1.3%), Bermuda (2.5%), and the United Kingdom (1.7%) for the same period. 

The industries with the highest expansion rates in 2017 were human health & social work (6.4%); other services comprising mainly diving, snorkelling & related watersport activities, hairdressers and spas (5.5%); water supply, sewerage & waste management (5.5%); administrative & support services activities comprising mainly of security and car rental services (4.7%); and professional, scientific & technical activities which consist mainly of legal and accounting services (4.3%).

The financial & insurance services industry also continued on its upward growth trajectory in 2017, growing by 2.48%. This is the industry’s highest growth rate since it started its recovery in 2011.

For more information on the “The Cayman Islands’ System of National Accounts Report 2017”, please visit www.eso.ky.