The fourth quarter of 2019 was marked by an improvement in economic activity, reflected in GDP growth of 3.8% compared to the same quarter of 2018, after 3.6% in the previous quarter.
On the supply side, this performance is the result of the good performance of activities in all three sectors: the tertiary sector has remained the leading group since the second quarter of the year with a contribution to growth of 1.9 points, followed by the secondary sector with 1.3 points, and the primary sector with 0.3 points.
On the demand side, the momentum of economic activity is mainly driven by final consumption and investment, with contributions to growth of 4.7 points and 5.4 points respectively. However, this performance was undermined by the significant increase in imports (27.9%), which contributed negatively by 8.6 points to growth, despite the improvement in exports of 9.7%. Thus, the moderate evolution of the volume of exports coupled with a larger increase in the volume of imports contributed to a deterioration in the deficit of the trade balance.
