Cayman’s economy and fiscal surplus continue to grow while the country’s debt continues to fall. Those are among the highlights coming out of the Economic and Statistics Office’s compendium of statistics, released on Thursday (2 August).
Click here for the full 2017 Compendium of Statistics.
Central government in 2017 recorded its highest overall fiscal surplus on record, a total of $140.6 million. The surplus comes after government revenue increased by 6.7 percent while spending increased only .8 percent.
Cayman’s estimated gross domestic product rose by 2.9 percent last year.
That’s down from 3 percent growth in 2015 and 3.1 percent growth in 2016 but still stands as the third-highest rate of growth since 2008. A country’s GDP is the total value of all goods and services produced in a country and is used as a benchmark to measure a country’s economic strength.
The economy remains overwhelmingly powered by the service producing sector, including tourism, construction and financial services.
The hotels and restaurants sector had the highest estimated growth of 8.5 percent. The other top growing industries in 2017 include construction (7.2 percent), mining and quarrying, (5.9 percent), producers of government services (3.7 percent) and real estate, renting and business activities mainly legal and accounting services (2.9%), according to the ESO.
Meanwhile, Government also slashed its outstanding debt in 2017 from $483.9 million to $449.1 million by the end of 2017.
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