Q4 GDP seen hitting 6.6%
Credit to Author: The Manila Times| Date: Wed, 04 Dec 2019 09:00:37 +0000
THE Philippine economy likely grew faster in the fourth quarter of the year on the back of the latest positive developments, an ING Bank economist said.
“Fourth quarter 2019 GDP (gross domestic product) to hit 6.6 percent . . . ,” ING Bank senior economist Nicholas Antonio Mapa estimated in a report released on Wednesday.
Mapa’s fourth quarter economic growth forecast compares with the 6.2 percent in the third quarter after the slower-than-expected 5.6-percent and 5.5-percent GDP expansions in the first and second.
Growth in the last quarter of 2019, the economist, said would bring full-year GDP expansion to 6 percent “on robust consumption, government catch-up spending and revitalized investment activity.”
“Fiscal spending working in tandem with additional easing from the BSP (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas) will help the Philippines hit its growth targets for both 2019 and 2020, even as external headwinds threaten the global economy,” Mapa highlighted.
For this year, the government revised downward its GDP growth target to 6 from 7 percent. It wants growth to settle within the 6.5 to 7.5-percent range for 2020. MAYVELIN U. CARABALLO