Gross Domestic Product (M5)

The data: coverage, periodicity and timeliness

Coverage characteristics

Gross domestic product (GDP) represents the country's income earned from production in New Zealand. It includes income from production carried out by New Zealanders and by foreign firms operating within New Zealand.

For production and expenditure-based GDP, data is published as chain-volume measures expressed in 1995/96 prices. Expenditure-based GDP data is also expressed in current prices.

Periodicity

Quarterly

Timeliness

We publish gross domestic product around three months after the end of the reference quarter.

Access by the public

Statistics release calendar

The statistics release calendar provides a long-term plan of scheduled releases. We update and release the calendar on the first working day of the month.

View the statistics release calendar

Integrity

Dissemination of terms and conditions under which official statistics are produced, including confidentiality of individual responses

We have reproduced the data with the permission of Statistics New Zealand.

Provision of information about revisions and advance notice of major changes in methodology

We generally publish revisions when we update and release a table. New or revised data is in bold font.

We have compiled a regularly updated real-time database containing successive quarterly releases of data for the expenditure and production measures of gross domestic product (GDP) and their components.

Quality

Dissemination of documentation on methodology and sources used in preparing statistics

We sourced data from Statistics New Zealand.

Gross domestic product

Gross domestic product (GDP)

Production based

The production approach to GDP measures the total value of goods and services produced in New Zealand, after deducting the cost of goods and services used in the production process. This is also known as the value-added approach.

Expenditure based

The expenditure approach to GDP (also known as GDE) measures the final purchases of goods and services produced in the New Zealand domestic territory. Exports are added to domestic consumption, as they represent goods and services produced in New Zealand, while imports are subtracted. Imports represent goods and services produced by other economies.

Final consumption expenditure

Private

Private final consumption expenditure comprises household expenditure or outlays on consumer goods and services, and the final consumption expenditure on non-capital items of private non-profit institutions serving households.

Government

Government final consumption expenditure is the value of goods and services provided by the government sector for current consumption by the community. It includes both central and local government.

Gross capital formation

Gross capital formation

Outlays of producers on durable fixed assets, such as buildings, motor vehicles, plant and machinery, hydro-electric construction, roading and improvements to land. 'Gross' indicates that consumption of fixed capital is not deducted from the value of the outlays.

Capital formation is grouped into seven broad asset types:

• residential buildings
• non-residential buildings
• other construction
• land improvements
• transport equipment
• plant, machinery and other equipment
• intangible fixed assets.

Change in inventories

The increase or decrease in the value of stocks of raw materials, work in progress and finished goods between the beginning and the end of the period.

Other

Gross national expenditure (GNE)

Gross national expenditure (GNE) is the total expenditure within a given period on final goods and services by New Zealand residents (that is, excluding goods and services used up during the process of production).

Exports of goods and services

Exports include all goods and services produced by New Zealand residents and purchased by the rest of the world. Exports of merchandise are valued free on board (FOB); that is, the value of goods as they cross the customs border.

Imports of goods and services

Imports include all goods and services produced by the rest of the world and purchased by New Zealand residents. Imports of merchandise are appraised at value for duty (VFD) on which customs duty is based. It equates approximately with the free on board cost of the goods in the exporting country and excludes freight and insurance.

Symbols and conventions for summary table

General notes

• Individual figures may not sum to the totals due to rounding
• Percentage changes are calculated on unrounded numbers
• You are free to copy, distribute and adapt these statistics subject to the conditions listed on our copyright page.