The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) reported a 1.3 percent decline in the real gross domestic product (GDP) for the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) in 2022, following a 3.7 percent increase in 2021. The statistics were developed under the Statistical Improvement Program, funded by the Office of Insular Affairs of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
The decrease in GDP was attributed to declines in exports, private fixed investment, government spending, and personal consumption expenditures. However, these were partially offset by an increase in inventory investment. Imports also saw a reduction.
Exports dropped by 18.9 percent due to decreased goods exports, despite a rise in services exports driven by increased visitor spending. Visitor arrivals surged by 69.7 percent according to USVI government data.
Private fixed investment fell by 18.6 percent as spending on equipment and structures declined after previous years' elevated levels for capital improvement projects like St. Croix's oil refinery restart.
Government spending saw a decrease of 4.4 percent, with territorial government expenditure down by 2.6 percent due to reduced construction activity and continued federal spending decline post-2017 hurricane reconstruction efforts.
Personal consumption expenditures decreased by 1 percent as consumer prices rose faster than current-dollar PCE.
Inventory investment improved with a smaller decline in crude oil and petroleum inventories compared to 2021.
For context, real GDP had increased by 3.7 percent in 2021 mainly due to growth in services-producing industries within the private sector, although goods-producing industries faced challenges with declining construction activity.
Updates to USVI GDP figures included new financial statements from the Government of the USVI and revised consumer price indexes from prior years among other data sources.
These preliminary estimates rely on various alternate data sources as most audited financial statements for fiscal year 2022 were unavailable as of April 2024.
For further details on methodologies used for these estimates, see "Summary of Methodologies: Gross Domestic Product for American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands."