Cape Verde’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew 1.4 percent in the third quarter of 2015, the African nation’s National Statistics Institute said last week.

In the equivalent quarter in 2014, the Cape Verdean economy contracted 0.7 percent, the statistics bureau added.

The growth in economic activities in the 2015 quarter related to sectors including electricity and water, housing and food, and financial services and insurance, mostly contributed to the year-on-year expansion in GDP, the bureau said in a statement.

In December the Bank of Cape Verde said the country’s economy was likely in 2015 to have seen expansion of 1 percent to 2 percent. The central bank added – in its Monetary Policy Report – that Cape Verde’s GDP was expected to grow by between 2.5 percent and 3.5 percent in 2016.