GDP is a number that tries to say how much a country made in one year. You add up the goods and services produced inside that country — the rice, the phones, the bus rides, the haircuts — and you give the pile a money value. “Inside the country” is the key. If a Taiwan company earns money in America, that money is not in Taiwan’s GDP. If a foreign company builds things in Taiwan, that work is in Taiwan’s GDP. The letters stand for Gross Domestic Product: “gross” here means the full amount before you take anything away, and “domestic” means at home, in this country. People on the news treat a rising GDP as “the country is doing well”, though actually it is a blunt tool. It counts a lot of busy-ness, but it does not tell you whether ordinary families feel better off, or whether the air is clean. The sister number, GNP, does count income from abroad; GDP leaves that out. That is the difference hiding in the phrase “except for income received from abroad”.