ABIDJAN, March 12 (Reuters) - Ivory Coast has revised how it
calculates its gross domestic product, a move that resulted in a
big jump in the reported size of its economy.
The new methodology for determining GDP, which includes
changing the base year for its calculation from 1996 to 2015,
was approved in a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
"The economy has changed, we have new industries, new
activities," said Gabriel N'Guessan, head of the national
statistics office. "We're not at war anymore for example."
The economy has been one of the world's fastest growing
since peace returned after civil wars in 2002 and 2010-2011.
The new calculation boosted reported 2015 GDP by nearly 40%
to more than 27 trillion CFA francs ($47 billion) from 19.6
trillion CFA francs under the old calculation.
While the government did not give more recent updated
figures, it confirmed average growth of around 7% between 2015
and 2018.
In recent years regional countries Ghana, Nigeria and
Senegal have also rebased their GDP figures, leading to similar
increases in measured economic output.
($1 = 576.7500 CFA francs)