Research and Development to be Included in GDP

• Come September 2020, the Government will be amending the format for measuring Jamaica’s gross domestic product (GDP), to include research and development as a subsector.

 

• Finance and the Public Service Minister, Dr. the Hon. Nigel Clarke, says this will entail incorporating the 2008 GDP measurement update under the United Nations System of National Accounts (SNA), being used by a number of countries, including the United States (US).

 

• The SNA is the internationally agreed standard set of recommendations on how to compile economic activity measurements. The system is a coherent, consistent and integrated set of macro-economic accounts in the context of internationally agreed concepts, definitions, classifications and accounting rules.

 

(Source: JIS)