Bandar Seri Begawan - There has been an increase of 10.5% in Brunei's gross domestic product (GDP) last year (2008) compared to the year before, the Department of Economic Planning and Development (JPKE) stated yesterday.

In 2008, GDP amounted to $20.4 billion at current prices compared to $18.5 billion in 2007. GDP per capita at current prices also surged by 8.3% from $47.3 thousands (2007) to $51.3 thousands in 2008.

In terms of growth at constant prices, agricultural activity grew by 9.1% while fishery & forestry dropped by 6.7% and 4.9% respectively. The manufacturing activity improved at 2.8% after showing a decrease of 3.1% in 2007.

Construction, electricity and water also surged by 1.8 and 0.9% respectively. However, mining contracted by 9.3%, resulting in a decline of 5.4% for the industrial sector as a whole.

The services sector continued to grow by 2.6% after an increase of 9.2% in 2007. Transport and communications recordedthe highest growth of 6.3%, followed by government services 2.7%, finance (2.5%), real estate and ownership of dwellings (2.1%), private services (2%) and trade (0.5%).

The non oil and gas sector grew by 2.4% while the oil and gas sector dropped by 6.3%. Since the oil and gas sector still contributes around 70% to the country's economy, this decline has caused the overall GDP to record negative growth of 1.9%.

By the expenditure approach, capital formation recorded the highest growth of 13.2%, followed by import of goods and services (11%), personal consumption expenditure (1.8%).

However, government consumption expenditure and export of goods and services both declined by 0.8% and 6.2% respectively.

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