Datanomics: Industry share rises, services falls in FY05 vs FY12 GDP series

New 2022-23 GDP base may not change sector shares unless methodology is revised, as past shifts show sharp impact of statistical tweaks

The statistics office is slated to release a new gross domestic product (GDP) series on Friday with 2022-23 as the base year.

 

The new series should not alter the share of the three sectors —agriculture, industry and services — in GDP at current prices if the methodology for computing the numbers is not revised and only the base year is revised. However, the share would change if the methodology is tweaked.

 

The methodology was drastically revised in the 2011-12 series compared to the 2004-05 one, resulting in the changes cited above even for the common years of 2004-05 to 2011-12.

 

 

The share of industry never went beyond 26.67 per cent in GDP, while services constituted half of GDP from 2008-09 to 2011-12 in the 2004-05 series.

 

 

On the other hand, the share of industry never went below 29.22 per cent in GDP, while services never moved above 45.98 per cent in 2011-12 series.

 

The reason for the change could be that the summation of the three sectors' output value resulted in GDP at factor cost in the 2004-05 series and gross value added (GVA) at basic prices in the 2011-12 series.

 

Basic prices include production taxes such as stamp duty and production subsidies while factor cost does not include them.

 

Besides, the industry numbers heavily depended on the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) and the Annual Survey of Industries in the 2004-05 series, while filings at stock exchanges and MCA-21 are the main source in the 2011-12 series.