PSA: Q1 GDP still at 5.6%
Credit to Author: ANNA LEAH E. GONZALES| Date: Wed, 07 Aug 2019 16:18:22 +0000
DESPITE revising the growth rates of the country’s economic sectors, state statisticians on Wednesday kept the official economic growth figure for the first quarter at 5.6 percent.
In a report, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said figures for services and agriculture were revised downward from 7 percent to 6.8 percent to 0.8 percent to 0.7 percent, respectively.
It, however, revised upward the figure for industry, from 4.4 percent and 4.8 percent.
Also revised upward are net primary income from the rest of the world, from 1.9 percent to 3.2 percent; and gross national income, from 4.9 percent to 5.2 percent.
“The PSA revises the GDP (gross domestic product) estimates based on an approved revision policy, which is consistent with international standard practices on national accounts revisions,” the state-run statistics agency said.
The government initially aimed to record economic growth of 7.0 to 8.0 percent this year, but later revised this to 6.0 to 7.0 percent on account of the delay in the approval of this year’s national budget.
A dispute between the Senate and House of Representatives over alleged insertions led to the budget’s approval being delayed for four-and-a-half months. This forced the government to operate on a reenacted budget during that time, unable to spend on projects and programs supposed to be implemented this year.
Multilateral lenders have also slashed their economic growth forecasts for the country this year. One of them, the International Monetary Fund, did so not only because of the delayed budget approval, but also of weak external demand.
Yongzheng Yang, the Washington-based financial institution’s resident representative to the Philippines, has said the country’s GDP growth is likely to hit 6 percent in 2019, instead of the lender’s initial projection of 6.5 percent.
The Asian Development Bank also cut its 2019 projection to 6.2 percent from 6.4 percent because of the budget impasse.
And the World Bank revised downward its growth outlook for this year to 6.4 percent from the previous 6.5 percent.
The PSA will announce official GDP data for April to June today, August 8.