Trinidad and To­ba­go’s gross do­mes­tic prod­uct (GDP) in con­stant prices de­clined by 1.8 per cent in the first quar­ter of 2026, com­pared to the same pe­ri­od in 2025.

That is ac­cord­ing to a news re­lease from the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice, which al­so re­port­ed that the GDP in con­stant prices for the first quar­ter of 2026 de­clined by 8.1 per cent com­pared to the fourth quar­ter of 2025.

GDP at con­stant prices ad­justs for in­fla­tion to pro­vide a more ac­cu­rate mea­sure of re­al eco­nom­ic growth, while GDP at cur­rent prices re­flects the mar­ket val­ue of goods and ser­vices us­ing the prices of the cur­rent year.

Be­tween the fourth quar­ter of 2025 and the first quar­ter of 2026, the de­cline in the whole­sale and re­tail trade ac­count­ed for 79 per cent and 85 per cent of the con­stant price and cur­rent price es­ti­mates, said the CSO.

The sta­tis­ti­cal body said the first-quar­ter de­cline in GDP is nor­mal be­cause tra­di­tion­al­ly, at the end of the year, busi­ness sales in­crease rapid­ly be­cause of the Christ­mas sea­son.

At the be­gin­ning of the fol­low­ing year, whole­sale and re­tail sales de­cline as they fall back af­ter the Christ­mas peak. This is an an­nu­al oc­cur­rence.