
Pharma-driven Irish GDP growth revised down to 7.4% q/q in Q1
The growth was driven by a surge in pharmaceutical exports to the U.S. ahead of threatened tariffs, officials have said.
With Ireland's large multinational sector often distorting GDP, officials prefer to use modified domestic demand (MDD) to gauge the strength of the domestic economy.
Quarter-on-quarter MDD growth was revised sharply up to 2.0% from a provisional 0.8%, Central Statistics Office (CSO) data showed.
Revisions to previous quarters meant MDD grew by a slower 1.8% in 2024 compared to the 2.7% initially reported.
GDP, which is still used to calculate Ireland's share of activity across the euro zone, grew by 2.6% in 2024 versus an initial estimate of +1.2%.
Modified gross national income (GNI*), an annual measure that also strips out the distorting impacts of multinationals to give a more accurate picture of the total size of the Irish economy, suggested it grew by 4.8% in 2024 compared to 2023.
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