Mr. Sebastian Barnes:

I will let Dr. Casey go through the details of that.

Our analysis now focuses on modified gross national income, GNI*, because we think that is the best and most appropriate measure of the domestic economy, and what is most relevant for taxation. We focus a lot on that.

We would welcome moves by the Central Statistics Office to improve the data that are available on GNI*. We also highlight very good work done by the Department of Finance in moving more towards these domestic measures in its projections. The fiscal advisory council has been actively looking at these. Once we start to correct for the external sector everywhere it shows up in the economy, we end up with quite a different picture of how the economy looks. For example, we get a picture of the economy that is much less open and has much fewer exports and imports on a star basis than it does if we look just at raw numbers. That is very important for understanding the economy. I give credit to our secretariat for playing a leading role in the development of those measures but also to the Department of Finance for including GNI* in its forecasts.

Maybe Dr. Casey can give us a sense of how GDP developments, which are much more influenced by the international sector, compare with what we have seen on GNI*.