National Accounts- Quarterlies September 2018

Revisions Annual benchmarking and other methodological improvements Every year, before the release of September quarter GDP statistics, Stats NZ updates its quarterly GDP series following the inclusion of new annual benchmarks in calculations. We now have a comprehensive view of the economy and goods and services flows up to the March 2017 year. This sees our national accounts statistics reflect a more up-to-date structure of the economy. The new annual data comes from National accounts (industry production and investment): Year ended March 2017 and National accounts (income and expenditure): Year ended March 2018, both released on 24 November 2018. In addition to annual benchmark updates, we have continued to update our methodology by removing some fixed weights in the production and expenditure measures of GDP. Removing fixed weights allows the current-price weights used to aggregate volume series to be updated annually, so that shifts in the structure of the economy are better captured in our volume measures. In the September 2018 release, we removed fixed weights for manufacturing; postal, courier transport support, and warehousing services; rental, hiring, and real estate services; education and training; and arts and recreation services. On the expenditure side of GDP, we removed the fixed weights in gross fixed capital formation – road and rail transport equipment. The biggest revisions to GDP due to removing fixed weights are for the manufacturing industry. These revisions affect most historic data. The table below only shows recent quarters; revisions to earlier quarters are similar in magnitude. |Revisions to manufacturing due to removal of fixed weights| |Quarter| Percentage change from previous quarter| | |Previously published| Revised | | December 2012| 2.3 | 2.0| | March 2013 | -1.8 | -1.2| | June 2013 | 1.4 | 0.2| | September 2013| 0.3 | 0.6 | | December 2013 | -0.6 | 0.2| | March 2014 | 0.4 | 1.2 | | June 2014 | 0.9 | 0.5 | | September 2014 | -0.1 | 0.2 | | December 2014 | 0.8 | 0.6 | | March 2015 | 0.0 | 0.1 | | June 2015 | -1.5 |-1.3 | | September 2015 | 3.7 | 3.0| | December 2015 | 2.1 | 1.9 | | March 2016 | -1.1 | -1.1 | | June 2016 |-0.3 | -1.6 | | September 2016 | 2.0 | 3.7 | | December 2016 | -0.2 | -0.6 | | March 2017 | 0.5 | 0.1 | | June 2017 | 0.9 | 0.7 | | September 2017 | 0.6 | 1.6 | | December 2017 | 0.1 | -0.7 | | March 2018 | 0.6 | 0.5 | | June 2018 | 0.4 | 0.5 | Normal quarterly revisions due to updated indicator data In addition to the updated annual data and methodological improvements, we also received updated quarterly respondent information and other source data, causing revisions to: agriculture, forestry, and fishing manufacturing information, media, and telecommunications financial and insurance services rental, hiring, and real-estate services gross fixed capital formation household consumption and expenditure. Revisions table |Previously published and revised quarterly movements | | GDP | | GDE | | Quarter | Previously published | Revised | Previously published | Revised | Dec-12 | 1.5 | 1.4| | 1.0 | 1.0 | | Mar-13 | -0.1 | 0.0 | | 0.6 | 0.6 | | Jun-13 | 0.9 | 0.8 | | -0.2 | -0.2 | | Sep-13 | 0.7 | 0.7 || 0.8 | 0.8 | | Dec-13 | 0.2 | 0.2 | | 0.5 | 0.5 | | Mar-14 | 1.4 | 1.5 | | 1.1 | 1.1 | | Jun-14 | 0.5 | 0.5 | | 0.6 | 0.5| | Sep-14 | 1.3 | 1.3 | | 1.2 | 1.2| | Dec-14 | 1.5 | 1.4 | | 1.3 | 1.2| | Mar-15 | 0.3 | 0.4 | | 0.8 | 0.7| | Jun-15 | 0.7 | 0.8 | | 1.0 | 0.9| | Sep-15 | 1.1 | 0.9 | | 1.4 | 1.4| | Dec-15 | 1.0 | 1.0 | | 1.0 | 1.0| | Mar-16 | 1.2 | 1.2 | | 1.3 | 1.2| | Jun-16 | 1.0 | 0.9 | | 0.9 | 1.1| | Sep-16 | 0.8 | 0.9 | | 0.5 | 0.5| | Dec-16 | 0.4 | 0.4 | | 0.6 | 0.6| | Mar-17 | 0.8 | 0.9 | | 0.4 | 0.5| | Jun-17 | 0.8 | 0.9 | | 1.0 | 0.7| | Sep-17 | 0.6 | 0.9 | | 1.1 | 1.0| | Dec-17 | 0.6 | 0.7 | | 0.3 | 0.4| | Mar-18 | 0.5 | 0.6 | | 0.4 | 0.6| | Jun-18 | 1.0 | 1.0 | | 1.2 | 1.1 | Source: Stats NZ en-NZ