Puerto Rico’s economic activity index extended its decline to a fourth straight month in December.
The December economic activity index value was 0.7% below that for November. The index was up 16.1% from December 2017, when Puerto Rico was still recovering from the effects of Hurricane Maria.
Compared with December 2016, December’s economic activity index was down 3.1%.
Three of the four components of the economic activity index fell in December from November.
The components that declined from November were non-farm payroll employment (1.1%), electric power generation (0.1%), and gasoline consumption (2.6%). Cement sales, counted by number of 94-pound bags sold, increased by 0.1%.
The Economic Development Bank for Puerto Rico compiles the statistics. It applies a three-month moving average to the gasoline consumption data. In other words, with this data the comparison is between October through December data and September through November data.
