Today, the Bureau of Economic Analysis is releasing estimates of gross domestic product for the U.S. Virgin Islands for 2016, in addition to estimates of GDP by industry and compensation by industry for 2015. These estimates were developed under the Statistical Improvement Program funded by the Office of Insular Affairs of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Revised estimates of GDP for 2013 to 2015, as well as revised estimates of GDP by industry and compensation by industry for 2013 and 2014, are presented in this release.
Gross Domestic Product for 2016
The estimates of GDP for the USVI show that real GDP—GDP adjusted to remove price changes—increased 0.9 percent in 2016 after increasing 0.3 percent in 2015. For comparison, real GDP for the United States increased 1.5 percent in 2016 after increasing 2.9 percent in 2015.
The growth in the USVI economy primarily reflected increases in inventory investment and exports of goods. These increases were partly offset by an increase in imports of goods, which is a subtraction item in the calculation of GDP.
Petroleum product and crude oil transactions accounted for the majority of the growth in inventory investment and in exports and imports of goods, reflecting the reopening of an existing oil storage terminal on St. Croix. A new operator took ownership of the facility previously owned by Hovensa and, in 2016, began receiving shipments of petroleum.
For more information, read the full report.