1. New COVID-19 waves significantly affected the Brunei economy. The country was hit by the Delta variant in August 2021 and then by the Omicron variant in 2022, with new COVID cases increasing substantially in February 2022. New cases have declined since March, to 535 cases per million people as of end-May 2022 (see Annex 1). The authorities reintroduced partial lockdowns in August 2021, which negatively affected wholesale and retail trade activity in 2021Q3 (-4.3 percent decline y/y). The removal of many restrictions from mid-November and strong progress in vaccination have contributed to stronger activity in the contact-intensive sectors in Q4 (the service sector grew 2.1 percent y/y) and improved business sentiment. Brunei’s Business Sentiment Index remained above 50 (the threshold indicating economic expansion) in April 2022.
An External Sector Statistics (ESS) technical assistance (TA) mission was conducted remotely to Brunei Darussalam, during July 26–29, 2020, aimed at improving the quality of ESS, in line with the authorities’ request. This is the most recent TA mission on ESS to Brunei Darussalam following a previous one that took place more than 16 years ago by the IMF’s Statistics Department.