Gross domestic product - 1. quarter of 2006

A strong economic growth of 7.4% in Q1 2006 was on the supply side predominantly affected by manufacturing, where constant price value added grew by 18.5% year-on-year. Final consumption expenditure rose by 2.0%, gross fixed capital formation expenditure by 7.1%, and inventories grew considerably too. 
According to preliminary estimates, constant price gross domestic product in Q1 2006 was up by 7.4% year-on-year. This is the highest figure throughout the time series (since 1995).
 
Simultaneously with the estimate for Q1 2006, the CZSO is publishing an updated time series of quarterly national accounts indicators, which follows the revised series of annual accounts released on 30 May. At the moment, on a quarterly basis are available standardly published indicators for the years 2003 to 2006; the complete time series will be out within 14 days. Previous and current estimates of GDP growth are given in the following table:

GDP year-on-year	2004					2005
	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Rok	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Year
Previous estimate (in %)	104.0	104.8	104.9	105.0	104.7	105.3	105.8	105.8	106.9	106.0
Current estimate (in %)	103.6	104.2	104.3	104.7	104.2	105.4	106.1	105.9	106.9	106.1
Change (in percentage points)	-0.4	-0.6	-0.6	-0.3	-0.5	+0.1	+0.3	+0.1	+0.0	+0.1

On the supply side of the economy, constant price gross value added was up by 7.8% in total for all industries, total output rose by 10.5% and intermediate consumption by 12.1%. Broken down by industry, the growth was most affected by manufacturing (+18.5%), while a fall (–9.2%) was recorded for construction due to unfavourable weather conditions.
 
The increase in total demand was a result of various developments in its individual components. Household expenditure on final consumption was up by 3.4% at constant prices (by 6.2% at current prices), whereas general government expenditure on final consumption dropped by 1.0% in total. Gross fixed capital formation was higher by 7.1% year-on-year at constant prices. The marked growth of inventories (by CZK 20.6 billion at current prices) was contributed to by an increase in inventories of goods for resale, work in progress and finished products. As to external trade in goods and services, constant price exports grew by 17.0% and imports by only 15.3%.
 
At current prices, gross domestic product in Q1 2006 was up by 8.3% year-on-year, the overall price level measured by the GDP implicit deflator thus rose by 0.9% year-on-year.
 
As estimated by Eurostat, gross domestic product for the EU 25 grew by 2.2% year-on-year in Q1 2006.
 

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Contact: Jan Heller, phone: (+420) 274 052 865, e-mail: jan.heller@csu.gov.cz
Related time series: /produkty/hdp_ts