There were errors in my article last week. This is the corrected version of the article which I overhauled as a whole in view of its importance in helping us gauge the real size of the economy of Cebu in relation to the region or that of the nation.
In the Philippines, official government data on Gross Domestic Product or GDP is available only at the national and regional level. In the absence of this, the GDP of Cebu can be estimated by taking Cebu’s percentage share of the total population in Central Visayas and apply it to the GDP of the region. In the 2015 census, the population of Cebu was 62.6 percent of the region. The drawback of this method is that it would not give us the share of the various sectors of the economy out of the GDP. It also assumes that labor productivity and employment structure is the same in all the provinces in the region. This is not true.
The second method is to take Cebu’s percentage share of gainful workers engaged in the various sectors of the economy out of the total in the region engaged in the same type of economic activity and apply these percentages to the gross value added or output by sector of the region. The results would give Cebu’s estimated gross value added by sector. When added together, the result is the estimated GDP or total output of the region.
As of 2017, the Central Visayas GDP was placed at P1.033 trillion at current price or P551.2 billion at constant 2000 prices. Using the first method, the 2017 Cebu GDP is computed at P646.4 billion at current price or P345.0 billion at constant 2000 price. Using the second method, the 2017 GDP of Cebu is now estimated at P704 billion at current price or P382 billion at constant 2010 prices.
Under the second method, the 2017 GDP of Cebu at constant 2000 prices was equivalent to 69.3 percent of the region and 4.4 percent of the entire country. By sector, Cebu’s GDP coming from agriculture represented 39.6 percent of the region and 1.6 percent of the entire country. It was much higher in industry with 81.0 percent of the region and 5.7 percent of the entire country. In services, Cebu’s corresponding share was also high at 64.2 percent of the region and 4.0 percent of the entire country.
Like in gainful employment, Cebu’s economy is no longer dependent on agriculture for its output as only 3.2 percent of its GDP at constant 2000 prices was contributed by agriculture in 2017. The rest came from industry, 44.7 percent, and services, 52.2 percent.
At 3.2 percent of it’s GDP, Cebu’s total output from agriculture was lower than the region’s 5.5 percent and the entire country’s 8.5 percent. At 44.7 percent of its GDP, Cebu’s total output from industry was much higher than the region’s 38 percent and the entire country’s 34 percent. Cebu’s 52.2 percent output coming from services was lower than the region’s 56 percent and the entire country’s 57 percent.
Anyone interested in my supporting data may reach me at perryfajardo@yahoo.com.