Statistical Update: Gross Domestic Product

New estimates of economic activity on St Helena for 2023/24, and revisions to earlier years

This release presents new estimates of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Gross National Income (GNI) for 2023/24, and revisions to previously published estimates from 2017/18 onward. The statistics and indicators presented in this Bulletin can be downloaded in Excel format here. Note that all estimates presented in this release should be considered provisional: GDP estimation is a complex task and developing appropriate methods and data sources is an ongoing program of work.

Gross Domestic Product

GDP is a key indicator of economic activity used around the world: on St Helena it measures the total value of all the goods and services produced on the island during a year. For 2023/24, GDP at ‘market prices’ (which is the measure usually used) is estimated to be £39.4 million. Compared to 2022/23, the volume of goods and services produced by the economy is estimated to have fallen by 3.7%, a decrease in GDP in real terms (i.e. adjusting for price inflation) of around £1.5 million (Table 1).

Table 1. Estimates of Gross Domestic Product, 2019/20 to 2023/24, £ million

Over the last five years, from 2019/20 to 2023/24, GDP has fallen in real terms by 5.7%. But the total number of people on St Helena who contribute to GDP – both residents and visitors – on St Helena has also fallen, from an estimated average of 4,563 in 2019/20 to 4,277 in 2023/24 – a similar drop of 6.3%.

Adjusted for the size of the population, GDP was estimated to be £9,210 per person in 2023/24, or $11,570 (Table 2). In real terms, when inflation is taken into account, GDP per capita decreased slightly by 2.2% when compared to 2022/23. But over the last five years, GDP per capita has remained at a similar level, increasing very slightly from £9,170 to £9,210 (0.4%) between 2019/20 and 2023/24.

Table 2. Estimates of Gross Domestic Product per capita, 2019/20 to 2023/24

Breakdown of GDP by industrial activity

Table 3 shows the share of total value added by each major activity grouping (industrial activities are classified according to Revision 4 of the UN International Standard Industrial Classification, grouped to avoid disclosure of information about individual companies). Value added is the key component of GDP, and represents the total output of sole traders, businesses, government, and non-profit organisations, less the value of intermediate consumption (i.e. the value of goods and services used in the process of producing final goods or services). Note that there have been significant revisions to these estimates for previous years, as a result of better categorisation of value added to sectors, for Government activities and for some companies.

The largest sector in the economy in 2023/24 was Public Adminstration (18.1%), followed by Finance, Insurance, Information, and Communication (16.5%), and Health and Social Service Activities (15.5%). These three groups of activities account for just over a half of all value added in the economy (50.1%).

Table 3. Value Added by industrial activity, 2023/24

Gross National Income

A useful alternative measure to GDP is called Gross National Income (GNI), which values the economic activity of the Island’s residents, regardless of where that activity takes place. This is different to GDP, which is a measure of the total value of goods and services produced within the territorial boundaries of St Helena, regardless of whether that value is produced by its residents. GNI is derived from GDP by adding an estimate of the income earned abroad by residents and deducting an estimate of the income earned on St Helena by non-residents.

Table 4 shows the nominal levels of GNI and GNI per capita since 2019/20. St Helena’s estimated GNI per capita level is not yet high enough to have crossed the World Bank threshold that defines a ‘high income’ country. One important implication of this is that the financial support it receives from the United Kingdom and other official aid donors is classified as Official Development Assistance.

Table 4. Gross National Income, 2019/20 to 2023/24

Revisions

GDP estimation and measurement methods are complex and development of St Helena’s National Accounts is an ongoing programme of work. All estimates published in this bulletin should be considered provisional and subject to future revision as additional data sources become available and further improvements are made to the methodology. This release includes several revisions, including improved methods for estimating the contribution of certain financial services, adjustments to the treatment of government subsidies to some state-owned enterprises, and the use of new data sources to estimate the different types of activities performed by government and by large enterprises. Revisions have been incorporated from 2017/18 onwards to ensure comparability over time. Table 5 provides a comparison of the revised estimates to those previously released, for total GDP at current market prices.

Table 5. Revisions to total GDP at current market prices, 2017/18 to 2022/23

Methodology, questions, or comments

For the details on St Helena’s approach to measuring GDP, together with limitations and differences from standard methods, please click here. We welcome your questions and comments; to meet the team and get in touch, please click here.