Archive:EU-Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) - statistics on GDP
This Statistics Explained article is outdated and has been archived - for recent articles on non-EU countries see here.
- Data extracted in December 2013. Most recent data: Further Eurostat information, Main tables and Database. No planned update.
The results of the 2011 round of the International Comparison Program (ICP) provide a solid basis for the comparative assessment of economies in terms of their size. This article focuses on the comparative analysis of the 2011 round of ICP results for the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries and EU-28 Member States, and the comparison of CIS and EU-28 aggregates with the results of the United States and Japan.
The analysis includes the study of three different variants of gross domestic product (GDP): the nominal (current) GDP, the GDP at purchasing power parities (PPP) and the GDP at PPP per capita. The US dollar (USD) is used as a common monetary unit in all three cases for comparability and availability reasons (see data sources and availability).
Main statistical findings
GDP of the CIS countries and the EU Member States
Russian nominal GDP comparable to that of large EU-28 economies
Figure 1 shows the share of CIS countries in the total CIS GDP in 2011, expressed in billions of US dollars. Russia’s share stood at 76.6 % (USD 1 904.8 billion) which was much more than the share of the other CIS countries. Figure 2 shows that this result is related to the fact that Russia also accounted for 51.4 % of the total CIS population in 2011.
Kazakhstan held the second largest share of total CIS GDP (USD 188.0 billion) although it is significantly less populated (6.0 % of the total CIS population) than both Ukraine and Uzbekistan (16.4 % and 10.5 % of the total CIS population respectively).
Figure 3 provides a GDP overview of the CIS countries and EU-28 Member States. Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Italy were the only EU-28 Member States who had higher GDP figures than Russia in 2011.
In terms of GDP in current values, Kazakhstan and Ukraine were comparable to eastern EU-28 Member States such as the Czech Republic, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia, while the rest of the CIS countries were comparable to Croatia, Bulgaria, Slovenia, the Baltic EU-28 Member States and the smaller EU-28 Member States (Luxembourg, Cyprus and Malta).
GDP at PPP in the CIS countries and in the EU
EU-28 remained dominant, CIS countries advanced
The GDP at PPP is widely used for cross-country comparisons since it eliminates the effect of price level differences across countries, resulting thus in a more comparable measure of economic prosperity than the nominal GDP.
Figure 4 shows that massive growth in GDP was achieved by the CIS countries during the 2005–11 period. Using the United States as a standard value (i.e. 100) [1] CIS countries have overtaken Japan with their GDP at PPP, increasing from 18.0 in 2005 to 29.0 in 2011. In turn, Japan’s GDP at PPP dropped from 29.7 to 28.2 in large part due to the 2011 tsunami and subsequent Fukushima nuclear disaster, which hindered Japan’s economic growth.
The shares in world GDP at PPP of the EU-28 (18.2 % in 2011) and the United States (16.8 % in 2011) have declined during the period 2005–11, but remained considerably higher than that of the CIS (4.9 % in 2011).
Figure 5 shows that Russia has nearly closed the gap with Germany since 2005, changing from an indexed value of 13.0 in 2005 to 20.7 in 2011 (United States = 100), and overtaking both the United Kingdom and France in the process, whose GDP at PPP in 2005 was still higher (15.3 and 14.2 respectively) than Russia’s (13.0).
The analysis of GDP at PPP favours the CIS countries, and particularly Russia, to a greater extent than the study of nominal GDP, a finding that stems from the fact that the price levels in the CIS countries are lower than in the EU-28 Member States.
GDP per capita in the CIS countries and the EU
CIS countries still diverge from the EU-28
GDP per capita is considered a more appropriate indicator for cross-country comparisons than nominal GDP, since it is related to the size of the population. Only 5 EU-28 Member States (Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain) had larger populations than Ukraine in 2011 (45.7 million people), while Russia’s population was equivalent to 28 % of the total EU-28 population (143 million people) or more than the population of the 22 less populated EU-28 Member States combined.
Consequently, an interesting approach for an international GDP comparison between the CIS countries and the EU-28 Member States is to further adjust for the population size by using GDP at PPP per capita. Thus we get a comparison of material welfare across countries rather than just the size of the economies.
Figure 6 shows that in 2011 the United States remained the leading country in terms of GDP per capita at PPP (United States = 100), followed by Japan. The EU-28 however significantly reduced the gap with Japan between 2005 and 2011. Meanwhile, the CIS countries recorded a higher GDP per capita at PPP in 2011 than the world average (33). This is a significant change since 2005, when the world average GDP per capita at PPP was higher than the average of the CIS countries (22 vs 21).
Table 1 shows the GDP per capita at PPP in 2005 and 2011 for the CIS countries, the EU-28 Member States and other key economies using the United States’ value as a basis. The United States and Japan recorded a higher GDP per capita at PPP than the EU-28 average (67) in 2011. Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Azerbaijan were the only CIS countries with a GDP per capita at PPP higher than the world average (27). Romania and Bulgaria were the only EU-28 Member States with a GDP per capita at PPP lower than the average of the CIS countries (33) [2].
Data sources and availability
All GDP at PPP data (national and per capita) presented in this publication are provided by CIS-STAT, except for the data concerning Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. For the latter, the corresponding data stem from the World Bank web database.
All nominal GDP data and all population data presented in this publication stem from the World Bank web database (World Development Indicators).
All GDP data correspond to the 2005 and 2011 ICP rounds (data published in 2007 and 2013 respectively). All population data refer to 2005 and 2011.
Currently, the US dollar (USD) is the common monetary unit used by both CIS-STAT and the World Bank. The Russian rouble is also used by CIS-STAT for intra-CIS analysis (not used in this publication).
A dedicated ICP section (ICP 2011 Methodology and Research) provides the methodological framework for the data produced in the ICP 2011 round, describing also the research made since ICP 2005 for methodology improvement purposes.
In this statistical article: 1 billion = 1 000 000 000 and 1 million = 1 000 000
For further reading, metadata on purchasing power parities (PPP) are available in ESMS form (prc_ppp_esms) and Eurostat’s OECD Methodological Manual on PPP.
The index form, with United States = 100 was used to convey the relative change in GDP per capita in each country compared to the change in the United States.
Context
Economic development is commonly expressed in terms of GDP, which in the country context may be used to measure macroeconomic activity and growth, as well as providing the basis for comparisons between countries.
GDP per inhabitant is often regarded as a proxy indicator for overall living standards. However, as a single source of information it should not be relied upon to inform policy debates, as GDP does not take externalities into account such as environmental sustainability or social inclusion, which are increasingly considered as important drivers for the quality of life.
Neighbouring CIS has become a significant partner to the EU in recent years with Russia the main economy among the CIS countries.
See also
- National accounts and GDP
- GDP per capita, consumption per capita and price level indices
- Purchasing power parities as example of international statistical cooperation
Further Eurostat information
Source data for tables, figures and maps (MS Excel)
External links
- Interstate Statistical Committee of the CIS
- World Bank
- International Comparison Program
- ICP 2011 Methodology and Research
Notes