The city of St. John’s has released its economic review for 2022, indicating a positive outlook for 2023.

The review is for the entire St. John’s metro area, which includes several other municipalities.

Almost all of the key indicators the city looks at saw growth last year.

The city says the metro economy, excluding oil and gas production, is estimated to have increased by 2.3 per cent. However, the real GDP decreased by 2.1 per cent, mostly due to lower offshore oil production.

As well, new housing construction increased by nearly 35 per cent, due mostly to pent-up pandemic demand and in-migration.

Elsewhere, the population increased by 2.3 per cent, household income increased by over 9 per cent to $12.9 billion, retail sales increased by 7.8 per cent to $4.8 billion, and employment grew to 116,400—an increase of 5,200 jobs from 2019 numbers.

The city says economic growth for 2023, as measured by the GDP, is expected to continue and will be lead by the goods-producing sector.

Growth is also expected for the tourism industry.