Senegal's Economy Almost a Third Bigger After Data Overhaul
Senegal's Economy Almost a Third Bigger After Data Overhaul
(Bloomberg) -- Senegal’s economy is almost a third bigger than previously estimated after the West African nation’s statistical agency changed its base for measuring gross domestic product.
The country’s GDP at current prices measured 11.25 trillion CFA francs ($19.6 billion) in 2016, the National Statistics Agency said in a statement on its website. That’s 29 percent bigger than the previous estimate of 8.7 trillion francs, according to International Monetary Fund data.
The statistical agency changed its base year to 2014 from 1999 and included new data sources to better reflect the structure of the economy, it said. The economy expanded at 6.2 percent in 2016, the agency said. That compares with the IMF’s previous estimate of 6.7 percent.
Nigeria, Kenya and Tanzania revised all their GDP data in 2014, resulting in increases of between 25 percent and 75 percent in the size of those economies. Ghana will publish overhauled data from the second quarter and Kenya will release new data with an updated base year from 2019.
Senegal will maintain an expansion rate of about 7 percent until 2022, according to the International Monetary Fund.
To contact the reporter on this story: Andre Janse van Vuuren in Accra at ajansevanvuu@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Andre Janse van Vuuren at ajansevanvuu@bloomberg.net, Rene Vollgraaff, Liezel Hill
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