Southwest Florida shines in GDP report

JRL Ventures / Marine Concepts manufactures complex molds that other companies use to make boats rockets and helicopter trainers.

STAFF PHOTO / MIKE LANG

Published: Friday, February 22, 2013 at 2:31 p.m.

Last Modified: Friday, February 22, 2013 at 2:31 p.m.

NEW: Southwest Florida shines in GDP report - It's dated, but it's happy.

Odds are we're doing even better now.

A report by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, a division of the Commerce Department, shows that total goods and services produced in the North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota market during 2011 was $24.1 billion.

That is up 2.5 percent from 2010, but still short of the $24.4 billion generated in 2008, as Southwest Florida began its long slide into the Great Recession.

Charlotte County, with $3.3 billion in GDP during 2011, had an even stronger rebound from 2010 at 2.8 percent. That was still about $100 million shy of its 2008 performance.

Because of the lag in measuring these numbers the federal government likely will not have the region's 2012 performance until 2014.

But the numbers released on Friday are the most real-time of this broadest measure of economic performance.

Nationally, the average increase among all metros was 1.6 percent, the report shows, so this region was outperforming many.

The total GDP in North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota made it the 88th largest metropolitan area out of the nation's 366. Charlotte's put it at No. 346.

Nearby Cape Coral-Fort Myers was 103rd with $20.3 billion and Naples 146th with $13.4 billion. Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater was 24th with $116.2 billion. Other Florida metros: Jacksonville (47th, with $60.7 billion), Lakeland (123rd, with $16.8 billion), Miami (11th, with $263.4 billion) and Orlando (30th, with $102 billion).

GDP rose in 242 of those 366 metropolitan areas during 2011, with driven by professional and business services, durable-goods manufacturing and trade, the BEA said.

Of the 10 largest metros, the three with the fastest growth in 2011 were Houston-Sugar Land Baytown, Texas, (3.7 percent), Dallas-Fort Worth (3.1 percent) and San Francisco (2.6 percent). The 10 largest metros account for 38.1 percent of total metro GDP and averaged 2 percent growth in 2011.

Source: http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20130222/article/130229873

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