‘Respectable’ growth puts PH among fastest in Asia

By: Marites Villamor Ilano January 28,2016 - 11:05 PM

Gross domestic product expands by 5.8 percent in 2015

The economy expanded in the last quarter of last year by 6.3 percent, the highest quarterly growth for 2015.

This brought the average full-year gross domestic product (GDP) growth to 5.8 percent, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said yesterday.

This is lower than the government target of 7 to 8 percent GDP growth for 2015 and slower than the 6.1-percent growth in 2014.

But outgoing Economic Planning Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan said in a statement that “this growth is respectable given the difficult external environment, the onset of El Niño, and the challenges in government spending in the first semester.”

“Among the major developing countries, the Philippines will likely be among the fastest in Asia, next to India, the People’s Republic of China, and Vietnam,” Balisacan added.

GDP measures the country’s economic production and performance.

The PSA said the services sector was the main growth driver in the fourth quarter and in the entire year. The sector accelerated to 7.4 percent in the last quarter, bringing its full-year growth to 6.7 percent last year.

The industry and agriculture sectors both decelerated last year to 6 percent and 0.2 percent from 7.9 percent and 1.6 percent, respectively. Fourth quarter growth for industry was a slower 6.8 percent. Agriculture, on the other hand, contracted by 0.3 percent in the last quarter.

Balisacan said the 2015 growth gives the country a six-year average real GDP growth of 6.2 percent, “the highest since the late 70s.”

He said last year’s growth was driven largely by a much stronger domestic demand.

Government spending increased 9.4 percent compared to last year’s 1.7 percent. Public and private investments grew by 13.6 percent, led by public construction which increased 20.6 percent compared to 6.3 percent in 2014.

These created more jobs, boosted incomes and increased household consumption.

“This growth in investment and consumption reflects optimism in the economy given the success of governance and economic reforms, which gave us ample space to overcome challenges such as weather-related disasters, global economic slowdown, as well as domestic uncertainties, especially those associated with the forthcoming elections,” Balisacan said.

Budget Secretary Florencio Abad, for his part, credited the budget reforms to boost public spending and the increased infrastructure spending for the economy’s high growth path.

In a separate statement, Abad said the government has stepped up infrastructure spending to put the Philippines at par with other emerging economies in Southeast Asia.

Balisacan said, however, that challenges remain.

“Given serious threats from climate change and the realities of a global economy, we cannot afford to be complacent,” he said.

“The biggest lesson we have learned over the past six years is that we need to build resiliency in each sector of the economy and the socioeconomic resiliency of each individual and community.

Each sector has to be diversified in terms of products and markets,” he added.

Balisacan noted that the agriculture sector is at risk to weather-related shocks while the industry sector is dependent on external demand which has been weak in the last six years.

For the services sector, he said government must ensure policies that facilitate entry of investors and encourage innovation.

Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.
Your subscription has been successful.

Subscribe to our daily newsletter

By providing an email address. I agree to the Terms of Use and acknowledge that I have read the Privacy Policy.

Read Next

Disclaimer: The comments uploaded on this site do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of management and owner of Cebudailynews. We reserve the right to exclude comments that we deem to be inconsistent with our editorial standards.

TAGS: economy, GDP, growth, Philippine Statistics Authority

We use cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. By continuing, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. To find out more, please click this link.