The financial institution said in a statement that, with this result, the average annual growth stood at 4.6 per cent, according to the preliminary estimate in the original data series.

It added that in the seasonally adjusted quarterly GDP series, a growth of 0.1 per cent was recorded in relation to the fourth quarter of 2023.

For its part, the underlying evolution of the cycle trend series recorded growth of 0.3 per cent in relation to the fourth quarter of last year, of 4.9 per cent in the year-on-year variation, and of 5.3 in the annual average rate.

The report pointed out that, by the production approach, the year-on-year evolution of the quarterly GDP was due to the growth in the activities of hotels and restaurants (17.6 per cent), construction (16.0), electricity (8.9), water (8.5) and trade (7.3 per cent).

Mining and quarrying (5.1 per cent), financial intermediation and related services (5.1 per cent), livestock (3.8 per cent) and transport and communications (3.4 per cent), among other economic activities, also had an impact.

The BCN noted that by the expenditure approach, quarterly GDP growth was determined by the momentum of domestic demand, due to the growth of consumption (4.0 per cent) and fixed investment (8.0 per cent).

According to the NCB, this was tempered by a decline in net external demand, as a result of a decline in exports of goods and services (-5.8 per cent) and growth in imports (0.8 per cent).

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