What is a country's Gross Domestic Product

1. GDP is the final value of all goods and services produced by a country in a given time period. It is widely used as an indicator of economic progress.

2. The value of GDP is computed by multiplying the quantity of goods and services produced with their market price. The computation of GDP follows the conventions adopted by the National Income Accounting System.

3. Products and services having intermediate uses are not counted as the value of the final product includes the values of these intermediate goods.


4. GDP refers to output produced in the country, irrespective of the ownership of the factors of production. For example, the production of a foreign unit in India is included in India’s GDP.

5. GDP is measured on a time scale and annual and quarterly GDP estimates are commonly available.


(The content on this page is courtesy Centre for Investment Education and Learning (CIEL). Contributions by Girija Gadre, Arti Bhargava and Labdhi Mehta.)