The telecommunications industry contracted by 2.62 per cent year-on-year in real terms in the fourth quarter of 2017, the latest report from the National Bureau of Statistics has shown.
As contained in the Gross Domestic Product report for the fourth quarter of 2017, this was 1.82 percentage points higher than the -4.44 per cent recorded in the preceding quarter.
The data indicated that this was the second consecutive negative growth recorded in the subsector since the emergence of the economy from recession in the second quarter of last year.
The telecommunications and information services, as a subsector of the Information and Communication sector, however, grew marginally by 0.34 per cent in 2017, 4.35 percentage points lower than the 4.69 per cent growth rate recorded in 2016.
The Information and Communication sector is composed of the telecommunications and information services, publishing, motion picture, sound recording and music production, and broadcasting subsectors.
Overall, the ICT sector’s growth rate declined by -0.55 per cent year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2017, a -17.98 per cent points decrease from the 17.43 per cent it recorded in the same quarter of 2016. However, it is 2.11 per cent points higher than the rate recorded in the preceding quarter.
The sector contributed 11.24 per cent in fourth quarter to the total real Gross Domestic Product, lower than in the same quarter of the previous year in which it contributed 11.62 per cent and higher than the preceding quarter in which it recorded 9.56 per cent.
Motion pictures, sound recording and music production under the ICT sector grew by 1.02 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2017 from 2.33 per cent in third quarter and -1.08 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2016.
