Belize Replaces Its Base Model of Economy to 2014
Today, the Statistical Institute of Belize announced that the structure being used to measure the gross domestic product for the country did not provide a true representation of the reality on the ground. There was significant under coverage and industries were not being recorded in the G.D.P. estimation because the base mode of economy used was that of 2000. Fast track to 2022, the economic model has been recalibrated based on the 2014 economy which reflects that the cost to produce goods is up. Statistician Jefte Ochaeta, in his presentation, says that through a Supplies and Use Table which organizes transactions between producers and consumers, the G.D.P. model is now up by twenty-seven point six percent.
Jefte Ochaeta
Jefte Ochaeta, Statistician 1, S.I.B.
“When we take the total supply from the previous table, we remove the intermediate consumption of the previous table, we add the net taxes which is taxes less subsidies, we arrive at a G.D.P. number utilizing the production model which tells us now that the country of Belize produced goods and services totaling four point two billion dollars more or less for the year 2014. So what does that represent? When we compare the current price estimate for the year 2014, utilizing the old structure or old model based on 2000, we see that with the S.U.T. this introduces an increase in the G.D.P., an increase of twenty-seven point six percent. So this means that we were under representing our G.D.P. by twenty-seven point six percent. We shouldn’t be alarm because this is something that is a practice that is done by different countries whenever the change the way they measures their G.D.P. And as we can see in the table here, several countries from the region, within Central America and the Caribbean have upgraded their G.D.P. number, the base year that they were utilizing to measure their G.D.P. and that either increase their G.D.P. level or decreases their G.D.P. So it can be that they were overstating their GDP model. So like for instance El Salvador went from a based year of 1990 to 2005 and they decreased their level of G.D.P. that they were estimating by fourteen percent. When we get closer to us, somewhere like Bahamas, they moved from 2006 to 2012, and they increased their G.D.P. by twenty-seven point six percent. Similarly Saint Lucia, they increased their G.D.P. by nine point three percent when they replaced the model of the economy.”
