News from Islands
Cape Verde’s informal economy accounted for 18.1 percent of GDP in 2009
Praia, Cape Verde, 29 Oct – Cape Verde’s informal economy moved 20 billion escudos (181.3 million euros) in 2009 and employed 32,000 people, 18 percent of the active working population, indicates an official study released on Thursday in Praia.
As the island country’s gross domestic product (GDP) was 110 billion escudos (1 billion euros) in 2009, the informal economy therefore accounted for 18.1 percent of the total.
According to the National Statistics Institute study, more than half of all “employees” (52 percent) were women, with an average age of 38. Most lived in urban areas, mainly on Santiago Island, especially in the city of Praia.
Survey data show that Cape Verde had 24,000 informal production units, 63.6 percent of them in urban areas and 36.4 percent in rural areas, with more than 60 percent of them located on Santiago Island.
Commerce (55.1 percent) was the informal production units’ main activity area, followed by industry (33.9 percent) and services (14.5 percent), with the biggest share of activity concentrated in the retail food products business (42.5 percent).
More than 70 percent of informal production units do not have a tax identification number and their workers are not enrolled in the social welfare system.
Official figures released in July 2009 indicated that the Cape Verdean state’s coffers annually lost about 2 billion escudos (18 million euros) due to tax evasion and fraud as well as informal commerce.
Source: macauhub
