NI Economic Accounts Overview | Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency

Results from the Economic Accounts Project published on the 27 May 2026 can be found in the bulletin below.

Economic Accounts Project – 2022 official statistics in development

It is hoped that this paper will provide users with a number of indicators relating to the structure and inter-industry relationships of the Northern Ireland economy to aid economic analysis and decision making.

A modern open economy like that of Northern Ireland engages in four basic economic activities:

Production involves industries, government, households and non-profit institutions serving households producing goods and services;
Consumption represents purchases of goods and services by both industries and domestic final users comprising mainly households, and Central and Local Government;
Investment includes gross fixed capital formation, changes in inventories and valuables; and
Trade is the total value of exports minus imports.

The links and the measurement of these four activities is captured in the framework of the SUTs. In addition to the calculation of a balanced GDP the SUTs provide detailed data on the supply and use of products, inter-industry flows and the structure of the economy.

The Input-Output Tables (IOTs) are derived from the SUTs. These tables provide a framework for modelling the impacts of changes to the domestic economy and are the pre-requisite for calculating a range of derived data such as multipliers used for economic planning, analysis and forecasting.

A glossary of key elements used in the economic accounts can be found here .

Supply and Use Tables

The Supply and Use tables (SUTs) provide a picture of the flows of products and services in the economy for a single year and are used to set the level of annual current price Gross Domestic Product (GDP). They can also be used to derive GDP in volume terms alongside the double-deflation approach to estimating gross value added (GVA). The SUTs show the composition of uses and resources across institutional sectors and the inter-dependence of industries in order to reconcile the production, income and expenditure approaches to the measurement of GDP.

Next steps and further information

Official statistics in development (formerly known as experimental results)

The statistics will remain classified as official statistics in development until user feedback and quality assurance indicates that they are useful and credible and meet the official statistics criteria.

Next steps

NISRA is making these experimental statistics available so that users and stakeholders can be involved in their development. NISRA has engaged extensively throughout the project with expert users of NI economic statistics whose views have helped shape the development of the SUTs. Users include Department for the Economy, Department of Finance, and Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs economists, the Ulster University Economic Policy Centre and a number of NI economic commentators and consultants.

NISRA hope to receive informed feedback which will improve the quality and value of the statistics. In addition, this release is to help users become aware of the work undertaken by NISRA in the continued development of the Supply and Use framework for Northern Ireland.

NISRA intends to publish a number of outputs from the Input-Output Tables derived from the 2022 SUTs in June 2026. NISRA also aims to publish the SUTs for the 2023 reference year in early 2027.

NISRA plans to have these statistics assessed against the Code of Practice for Official Statistics which is required to gain National Statistics status.

Background

Background documentation is available to download including:

Archive data

Previous NI Economic Accounts Overview publications

Further Information

Rachel Keating
Tel: 028 9055 5323
Email: rachel.keating@nisra.gov.uk

Kristine Cooke
Tel: 028 9052 9359
Email: kristine.cooke@nisra.gov.uk
X: @NISRA