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28 29 card on the Cayman Islands’ current economic picture? Minister McTaggart: “Certainly. Over the last three years, the total value of goods and ser- vices produced in our local economy is estimat- ed to have increased by 2.8 percent per year. That’s higher than our neighbors in the U.S., most of the major world economies, and our regional neighbors, are performing. Adjusted for inflation, the estimated GDP of the island reached 2.8 billion Cayman dollars at the end of 2017, or $3.09 billion in 2017 constant prices. That translates into a GDP per capita of ap- proximately 48,700 Cayman dollars or 58,440 U.S. dollars.When you benchmark that against data produced by the IMF (International Mon- etary Fund), that places us at number eight in the world in terms of GDP, well ahead of every OECD country. To put it in perspective, the Unit- ed States ranks number seven. MINISTRY OF FINANCE & ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT - CAYMAN ISLANDS Hon. Minister RoyMcTaggart “So, we have a very strong performing econo- my, and one that’s been historically strong, and producing quite a bit of wealth, as evidenced by that standard of living. The growth in GDP has been very broad- based, just about every sector of the economy that we track is growing– at varying rates, as you would expect. The most dynamic of those right now is the construc- tion sector; growing at a rate of 7.8 percent in 2015/16 and moderating slightly to 7.7 percent in the first three quarters of 2017. That’s because a very large hotel project was completed in 2016, so we knew that the growth wouldn’t be as robust in 2017. “The sector’s growth reflects the infrastructure capacity of the islands keeping pace with the demand for residential, commercial, and public facilities. That’s arising from a higher popula- tion based which we’ve estimated at 63,400 people by the end of 2017. The largest sector of our GDP is the financial services industry, which consists of domestic banking and insurance activities. That industry directly contributes 41 percent of the country’s GDP, and that has grown by an average of 2.1 percent in 2015/16 and an estimated 1.2 percent in the first three quarters of 2017. “Consumer prices, inflation, in 2015/16 fell by 2.3 and 0.7 percent in those years, and we’ve seen a bit of reversal in 2017. Our final CPI