Gross Domestic Product, Other Aggregates of National Accounts and Employment, Slovenia, 2018

This publication of national accounts data is the result of a scheduled major revision and the first annual estimate of 2018 GDP. The total impact of many positive and negative changes is lower than after the previous major revision in 2014. The entire time series of data from 1995 on has been revised.

4.1 percent economic growth in 2018

The gross domestic product for 2018 was estimated based on first annual data sources. GDP was EUR 45,755 million in 2018, which is a 6.4% nominal increase over 2017. In volume terms the 2018 GDP grew by 4.1%.

Growth of all expenditure components of GDP in 2018

The balance of external trade was still strongly positive (EUR 3,789 million) and slightly lower than in 2017 (by -0.2% of GDP in real terms). The volume of exports went up by 6.6% and the volume of imports by 7.7%.

Household final consumption expenditure increased in real terms by 3.4%, with the largest contribution from the group of transport means and services. Final consumption expenditure of general government increased as well, by 3.2% in real terms.

Gross fixed capital formation increased in volume by 9.4%. Most of the contribution to this growth was in machinery and equipment, both in transport equipment (volume growth 7.2%) and in other machinery and equipment (volume growth 11.9%). The contribution of GFCF in non-residential buildings was also significant, with volume growth of 11.5%. Gross fixed capital formation represented 19.2% of GDP in 2018 or 0.9 of a percentage point more than in 2017.

Changes in inventories in finished goods, work-in-progress, materials and goods for resale increased again in 2018, in total by EUR 850 million.

Growth of value added in most activities

4.1% economic growth in 2018 was due to increased value added in most production activities. The largest contributions were from Manufacturing (0.7 of a percentage point), Wholesale and retail trade and repair of motor vehicles (0.6 p.p.), Construction (0.4 p.p.) and Transportation and storage (0.4 p.p.).

Increased share of compensation of employees

The share of compensation of employees went up by 0.4 of a percentage point in 2018, representing 49.9% of GDP. The share of net taxes on production and imports went down by 0.2 p.p. to 12.9% of GDP. The share of consumption of fixed capital went down by 0.3 p.p. to 19.0% of GDP. The share of net operating surplus and mixed income was 18.3% of GDP (0.0 p.p. change over 2017).

Total employment exceeded one million persons

The number of employees increased in 2018 by 3.3% and the number of self-employed persons increased by 2.5%. Total employment increased in 2018 by 3.2% and was estimated at 1,020,719 persons. The employees represented 81% and the self-employed represented 19% of total employment.

 

More on the revision

With routine revisions the national accounts data for the past few years are revised, mostly with updated and additional data sources. In this publication, though, the data have been revised for the entire data series from 1995 on and many more revision steps than usually have been made. This is part of the timing harmonisation of revision policies of European countries, with the purpose of ensuring comparability of data between countries.

Most of the revision steps were due to the results of the verification of quality of national accounts data for administrative purposes (for determining the contribution to the EU budget, excessive deficit procedure, eligibility for European funds). Through verification the European Commission requests from countries to carry out measures to harmonise national accounts estimates with the methodological standards and to ensure comparability of data between countries. The requests differ between countries, depending on the outcomes of the verification process for each country. The latest verification is still ongoing, but is in the final stage. For Slovenia the greatest impact on the estimates was due to the following revision points: inclusion of changes in inventories of standing timber (estimation of wood production in managed forests during their growth instead of at the time of tree felling), inclusion of non-collected value added tax due to producers' bankruptcy, corrections of the exclusion of holding gains and losses from changes in inventories, corrections of the valuation adjustment to basic prices for production for own use, market test and institutional sectorisation of legal persons of private law.

The revision has changed the estimates of gross domestic product in different years in the range from -0.4% to +0.6% and on average by 0.0% of GDP. Economic growth rates have changed between -0.5 and +0.3 of a percentage point and on average by 0.0 percentage points.