By Central Bank of Barbados
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados – The Barbados Statistical Service rebased the national accounts in 2025, updating the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) base year from 2016 to 2023.
GDP rebasing is a standard statistical exercise that replaces outdated price and volume information with data from a more recent reference year, in line with internationally recommended guidelines under the System of National Accounts. The rebasing improves the measurement of economic activity by better reflecting current production structures, consumption patterns, and sectoral contributions to output. The exercise benefited from technical assistance from the International Monetary Fund Statistics Department and the Caribbean Regional Technical Assistance Centre.
Rebasing is a routine feature of national accounts compilation and does not alter the underlying economic reality. Rather, it is a statistical refinement that improves how economic activity is measured and presented. Barbados has undertaken similar exercises in the past, revising the GDP base year from 2000 to 2010, subsequently to 2016, and now to 2023. These revisions are typically published with a lag to allow for the compilation of benchmark data, methodological validation, and consistency checks across the accounts.
The choice of 2023 as the new base year reflects the availability of more comprehensive and representative data in a post-pandemic operating environment. Following the disruptions associated with COVID-19, 2023 provides a reference year in which economic activity had broadly normalised across most sectors, allowing updated price weights and volumes to better capture current economic conditions.
The rebased GDP series incorporates several methodological enhancements that strengthen the national accounts framework. These include updated price weights derived from more recent surveys and administrative data, expanded coverage of economic activities, and improved volume indicators for the estimation of real GDP. Additional refinements were made to enhance consistency across the production, expenditure, and income approaches to GDP measurement. Further details on the GDP rebasing, including the revised data series and methodological notes, are available on the Barbados Statistical Service website).
The adoption of the 2023 base year resulted in a higher measured level of economic activity in both real and nominal terms. For 2023, measuring the same year of economic activity using the new base year places the level of real GDP 32.5 percent higher than under the 2016 base year, while nominal GDP is 5.6 percent higher. These differences reflect the use of updated price weights, expanded sectoral coverage, and revised volume indicators. The largest upward level revisions occur in business and other services, wholesale and retail trade, transportation and communications, government services, construction, and tourism accommodation.
The rebasing has important implications for the interpretation of macroeconomic indicators. Accordingly, real GDP growth should be assessed within a single base year series, as differences in GDP levels across base years reflect changes in measurement rather than changes in economic activity. Ratios expressed relative to GDP, including fiscal and debt indicators discussed elsewhere in the report, are mechanically affected by the higher nominal GDP denominator under the rebased series.
Overall, the rebasing of GDP to the 2023 base year enhances the analytical foundation of macroeconomic assessment. By improving the accuracy, relevance, and international comparability of national accounts, the revised series supports more informed analysis of economic performance, fiscal developments, and medium-term trends, while preserving continuity in the underlying economic narrative.
