#Thread The Jamaica Observer has a misleading article, with several inaccuracies, on the STATIN release.
When comparing Q3 2019 against Q3 2018, STATIN reports that the economy grew by 0.6%. This fact is overlooked in the Observer story and hence the very unfortunate and misleading story headline.
Year-over-year quarterly change in GDP is the measure of quarterly growth most often used which is why this is the main focus of the STATIN GDP release and summarized in the opening paragraph of all STATIN quarterly GDP releases. Somehow the Observer missed this.
Comparing the SAME quarter in one year with the SAME quarter in a previous year evens out seasonal effects and gives an even view of how the economy is performing over time.
STATIN also reported that Q3 2019 GDP as compared with Q2 2019 GDP declined by 0.1%. However, in aggregate the economy has grown in the period Jan ‘19 - Sep ‘19 as compared with Jan ‘18 - Sep ‘18 & also grown for the period Jun 2019 - Sep 2019 as compared with Jun 2018 - Sep 2018
STATIN reports that the Jamaican economy grew by 0.6% in the quarter ending September 2019 over the similar period in 2018. This represents the 19th consecutive quarter of economic growth. 
This result to September 2019 represents the longest period of quarterly economic growth since we started measuring growth quarterly in 1997.
