UTULEI, AMERICAN SAMOA — (The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) is releasing estimates of gross domestic product (GDP) for American Samoa for 2010 and revised estimates for 2002 to 2009.

In this release, BEA – for the first time – also includes estimates of GDP by industry, compensation by industry, and detailed consumer spending.

These estimates were developed under the Statistical Improvement Program funded by the Office of Insular Affairs (OIA) of the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Gross Domestic Product for 2010

The estimates for American Samoa show that real GDP – GDP adjusted to remove price changes – increased 1.3 percent. For comparison, real GDP for the U.S. (excluding the territories) increased 2.4 percent in 2010.

The growth in the economy in 2010 largely reflected increases in territorial government spending and private fixed investment, including construction.

Following the September 2009 earthquake and tsunami, the American Samoa Government significantly increased its spending, including hiring temporary workers for cleanup and recovery operations. Construction activity increased as homes and other structures damaged or destroyed by the natural disaster were repaired and rebuilt.

Economic growth was tempered by a decline in exports of goods and services that was only partly offset by a decline in imports.American Samoa’s exports, which consisted overwhelmingly of exports of the tuna canning industry, were a major contributor to the decline in total exports in 2010.

Consumer spending continued to be a drag on the American Samoa economy in 2010, declining for the sixth consecutive year. More detailed estimates of consumer spending are being released for the first time today and show that for 2010, spending fell on both goods and services. Net foreign travel, calculated as spending by American Samoa residents abroad less spending by nonresidents in American Samoa, also contributed negatively to economic growth.

Gross Domestic Product by Industry and Compensation by Industry

The new estimates of gross domestic product by industry (GDP by industry) provide additional information on economic growth and complement the aggregate GDP estimates that have been published since 2010. While the GDP estimates show how much the entire economy has grown (or contracted), the new GDP by industry estimates show how major industries have contributed to that growth.

For American Samoa, the GDP by industry estimates show that the manufacturing industry, which includes the tuna canning industry, contracted in 2010. The tuna canning industry, which had experienced a steep decline in 2009 due to the closure of one of the territory’s two canneries, continued to decline in 2010, while non-manufacturing industries and the territorial government sector contributed positively to the economy.

The compensation by industry estimates show trends in compensation for major industries. Total compensation fell in 2010, reflecting a decline in private sector compensation. Private sector compensation fell largely as a result of the cannery closure in the third quarter of 2009. However, territorial government compensation, which includes the compensation paid to temporary workers following the earthquake and tsunami, continued to increase in 2010.

The accompanying tables present estimates for GDP and its major components, GDP by industry, and compensation by industry. Also included in this release are estimates for the major components of gross domestic income.

Revisions to GDP

Estimates of GDP for 2002 to 2009 that were released on May 31, 2011 have been revised in order to incorporate improvements to source data and estimation methodologies. Major improvements are:

            The incorporation of newly available data for food purchased from farms, food produced on farms, and food consumed on farms from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s 2008 Census of Agriculture.

            The incorporation of newly available data from the U.S. Census Bureau, including: o Housing information from the 2010 Census of Population and Housing, and o Wage and salary data for 2008 and 2009 from County Business Patterns.

            The incorporation of newly available source data for territorial government spending from government financial statements for fiscal year 2010.

The pattern of growth in the revised estimates is similar to that of the previously published estimates. In both the revised and the published estimates, real GDP decreased in 2006, 2008, and 2009, and increased in all other years. The largest revision to real GDP was for 2009 and reflected an upward revision to territorial government spending that was based on the incorporation of information from the American Samoa Government’s fiscal year 2010 financial statements.

Future directions

Moving forward, an agreement between OIA and BEA will extend and improve the estimates of GDP for American Samoa. The information provided by the American Samoa Government will continue to be critical to the successful production of these estimates.

BEA currently plans to release estimates for 2011 in the spring of 2013.