Ireland Shows Double-Digit Growth

Growth in the Irish economy has again confounded expectations, growing by 10.4% year on year in the third quarter of 2017, RTE reported. The latest quarterly national accounts show gross domestic product accelerated by 4.2% in the third quarter alone amid a strong pick-up in personal consumption. This was nearly eight times the growth rate recorded in the eurozone as a whole for the third quarter. The figures also show gross national product, which strips out the effects of multinational profit flows, jumped by 11.9% on a quarterly basis. While the latest growth numbers reflect the current strength of the Irish economy, they will also raise fresh questions about the level of statistical noise in the data. Nonetheless, the Central Statistics Office said large imports of intellectual property products and aircraft related to the leasing sector were absent for the third quarter data. It said the growth in GDP was driven by a strong performance in the manufacturing sector, which expanded by 5.1%, and in the information and communication sector, which accelerated by 5.8%.