It contributes more than 5 per cent to the nation's GDP and 78 per cent to the gross capital formation.

The first two types of government spending, final consumption expenditure and gross capital formation, together constitute one of the major components of gross domestic product.

Spending on services from member firms on the New York Stock Exchange totaled $53 billion in 1987 - 12 cents for every dollar of gross capital formation.

This flight of intellectual capital is estimated to come to almost $6 billion a year in growth opportunities, based on the average Iranian professional contributiong $40,000 per year to gross capital formation.

But in fact, in national accounts, the concept of gross capital formation refers only to the accounting value of the "additions of non-financial produced assets to the capital stock less the disposals of these assets".

In addition, domestic demand is projected to grow by 6.5 percent in volume this year, compared with 6 percent last year, while gross capital formation is expected to rise 14 percent in volume and 9 percent more next year.

Thirdly, gross capital formation is often used synonymously with gross fixed capital formation but strictly speaking this is an error because gross capital formation refers to more net asset gains than just fixed capital (it also includes net gains in inventory stocklevels and the balance of funds lent abroad).