The National Statistics Office yesterday announced that provisional estimates indicate that the Gross Domestic Product for the second quarter amounted to €1,897.8 million, an increase of 4.2 per cent over the corresponding period last year. In real terms, GDP went up by 2.9 per cent.

That would put Malta on top of Europe. A week ago, in fact, Eurostat reported that seasonally adjusted GDP remained stable in the euro area (EA18) and rose by 0.2% in the EU28 during the second quarter of 2014, compared with the previous quarter. In the first quarter of 2014, GDP grew by 0.2% in the euro area and by 0.3% in the EU28.

During the second quarter of 2014, GDP in the United States increased by 1.0% compared with the previous quarter (after -0.5% in the first quarter of 2014). Compared with the same quarter of the previous year, GDP grew

by 2.4% (after +1.9% in the previous quarter).

The detailed figures provided by Eurostat at that point did not include the figures for Malta. But the figures for the rest of the EU Member States are far below the figures now reported for Malta.

The nearest is Latvia which reported a 1.0% growth in the second quarter followed by the UK and Hungary at 0.8% growth, Lithuania at 0.7%, and Spain, Poland, Portugal and Slovakia at 0.6%. Mighty Germany saw a regression, -0.2%, because of the Ukraine crisis and the effects of sanctions on Russia.

During the second quarter of 2014, the growth in gross value added was mainly generated by public administration and defence; education; human health and social work activities; wholesale and retail trade; transportation and storage; accommodation and food service activities.

Negative growth was registered in manufacturing, electricity and water supply.