Author Archives: IJGResearch

Final National Accounts, 2014

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The Namibia Statistics Agency has just released the final national accounts for 2014. As per our expectations, we have seen a major upward revision in the overall real growth rate, from 4.5% to 6.4%, slightly below our forecast of 6.8%. This revision brings both the overall growth level more in line with levels seen in high frequency indicators through the year, as well as showing notable improvement in many of the sectors growth levels, bringing these more in line with growth witnessed on the ground.

Some of the key revisions to the supply side tables (real GDP) are noted below.

NamGrowth

REalGDP GrowthGDP2014IJGvsNARealGDPGrowth

We also note that we have seen a sizable revision to the deflator between the nominal and real GDP figures. The peculiarly high deflator in the preliminary accounts was of some concern to us, as we believed it was artificially large, and dampening the real GDP growth picture. The new and previous deflators, relative to NCPI, can be seen below.

NAmDeflator

We are currently working on a National Accounts review, and will share more thoughts on the current release in due course.

 

Building Plans – August 2015

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A total of 207 building plans valued at N$159.6 million were approved by the City of Windhoek in August 2015. On a year to date basis, 1,759 plans were approved with a value of N$1.409 billion, versus 1,957 plans valued at N$1.695 billion for the same period last year. This represents a 16.8% decrease in the value of plans approved on a year to date basis. This decrease is mainly due to base effects as three large commercial projects were approved by the municipality in February 2014. On a month to date basis, the value of plans approved increased by 10.1%, due to a rise in the value of approved additions and houses compared to July. The below chart illustrates the value of plans approved in July compared to previous months.

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The 12-month cumulative value of plans approved continued to fall, down from N$2.042 billion in July to N$2.012 billion this month, along with the cumulative number of plans approved, which fell from 2,719 in July to 2,648. These figures are presented in the charts below.

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In our view, the construction sector will remain one of the leading growth and development sectors for 2015 in the Namibian economy, with both private sector and government having aggressive development plans. However, since many of these plans occur outside the Windhoek municipal area, they are not captured in the monthly building plan statistics.