In his letter titled ‘Like with like’ (November 17), Joseph Zerafa shows he does not understand that rates of growth, rather than annual percentage changes, smoothen out the peaks and troughs and help us understand any shifts in trends.

I have analysed five-year periods, also taking into account the recent population revision figures published by the National Statistics Office.

Between 1993-1997, economic growth of 7.8 per cent occurred despite an annual population growth of just 0.8 per cent because GDP per capita increased by seven per cent. A quite similar result occurred in the previous five years.

Between 1988-1992, a population rate of growth of 1.2 per cent every year accounted for 16 per cent of economic growth, versus 26 per cent of economic growth for a population change of 2.4 per cent annually between 2013-2017, so no proportionality.

Between 1993-2012, GDP/capita accounted for 86.9 per cent of economic growth with an annual population growth of 0.72 per cent versus 74 per cent between 2013-2017 when the yearly population growth was 2.4 per cent.

The plain truth is that population change does not have the impact claimed by the correspondent and without population change we would still have had a healthy economic growth easily exceeding that of the previous 10 years (6.7 per cent versus 4.1 per cent).