Asheville’s metropolitan area saw economic growth besting the national average in 2017, buoyed by gross domestic product gains across most industry sectors.
The Asheville area saw its real GDP grow by 4.1 percent in 2017, the second highest percentage in the state behind the Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton area, data released Tuesday by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis shows. Of the 383 metros in the study, Asheville came in 37th and topped the 2.1 percent national average rate of real GDP growth. In total, 312 metro areas — or about 81 percent — saw their local economies grow in 2017.