Caribbean: update on capital stock

The Caribbean includes 29 modeled countries and areas. Annual growth in capital stock for these countries ranged from 2 percent (Jamaica) to 41 percent (Haiti). Most areas typically grew between two and eight percent annually.

For many countries in the region, the COVID-19 pandemic hindered growth. The region has largely recovered from the pandemic shock, but capital stock growth is lagging behind other regions of the world.

For higher-income countries, such as the Cayman Islands and Dominican Republic, capital stock values grew faster than the Caribbean average. Growth was driven by higher levels of investment and price increases compared to other Caribbean economies. In the Cayman Islands, building permit value has begun to moderate following a period of sustained growth. According to the Economics and Statistics Office of the Cayman Islands, the slowdown is attributed to declines in residential, industrial, and hotel building permits. The Dominican Republic continues to be one of the most resilient economies in the Caribbean. While the Dominican Republic’s post-pandemic recovery began to moderate in 2022, the country’s economic outlook remains strong.

Haiti continues to be hindered by a challenging economic climate characterized by an unstable currency, high inflation, and political and economic uncertainty.

In Barbados, Costa Rica, and Jamaica, underlying economic data used to develop the Verisk Global Capital Stock Index were revised by each country’s statistics office. In Barbados, underlying economic data were revised by the country’s statistics office following a significant effort to strengthen the compilation and dissemination of the country’s macroeconomic statistics. Historically, the Barbados Statistical Service (BSS) provided annual estimates of nominal macroeconomic statistics, while the Central Bank of Barbados provided estimates of real statistics. In 2018, BSS took over reporting both nominal and real values. Following a two-year project to align BSS’s economic data collection and estimates with internationally accepted statistical standards, revisions to real macroeconomic values and price changes were released for the past several years.

For Costa Rica, economic data were revised to reflect improvements in macroeconomic data collection, including estimation of real estate activity and overall price changes. In Jamaica, economic data were revised by the country’s statistics office with technical assistance provided by the International Monetary Fund and other partners. Revisions resulted in changes to both new investment activity and construction prices since 2020. Progress on revising previous data in Jamaica is ongoing and may result in future revisions.