Philippine Q4 GDP rise by 6.3%
Feb 02, 2016 09:45 AM EST
Philippine's fourth quarter gross domestic product increased by 6.3% and represents the highest quarterly development for 2015. However, the nation's GDP growth is lesser than the 6.6% reported in the last year period. This quarterly growth was motivated by Services sector that hastened to 7.4% from 5.6%.
Among the service sector, transport, storage and communication subdivisions jumped to 8.9% in the fourth quarter 2015 from 4.5% posted in the same period last year, while the real estate activities dropped to 7.9% from 9.7%. The country's industry sector slowed to 6.8% from 9.1% in the previous year quarter. Meanwhile, Agriculture sector tapered by 0.3% from a progress of 4.2% over the same period last year, according to the data released by Philippine Statistics Authority.
Gross National Income for the fourth quarter 2015 grew to 6.2% from 5.7% in the prior year quarter. On an annual basis, Gross National Income dropped to 5.4% from 5.8% for the year 2014.
The quarterly GDP led the nation's economy to grow by 5.8% for the year 2015 from 6.1% in the previous year. The annual service sector jumped to 6.7% from 5.9% in the previous year. While the industry segment fell to 6.0% from 7.9% last year. The agriculture sector also decelerated to 0.2% from 1.6% in the year 2014.
Early in the present week, International Monetary Fund lowered Philippine's GDP growth to 5.7 percent instead of 6 percent for 2015, the RAPPLER said. The full year growth is slightly higher than the analysts' prediction. Moody's Analytics said in its recent Asia-Pacific economic preview that the fourth quarter GDP growth was 5.9%.
Socio-Economic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said, "The agricultural sector persists to be the biggest road block in our goal where attaining a higher and more inclusive growth both in the light of improving crop production and farmers' income. There is an urgent need to rethink the development strategy for this sector, especially with the impact of El Nino and natural disasters that hound the country yearly."
MarketWatch said that the development was speedier than the 6.0% growth prediction by the analysts surveyed by The Wall Street Journal. The quarterly growth also shattered the prior quarter's reread 6.1% pace.
Despite the strong growth, the Philippine government will have to increase spending in the present year in order to safeguard the nation's economy from the prevailing irregular growth worldwide, Balisacan added. He also said that the country could hit a greater growth of 7% if it addresses regulatory and infrastructure limits.
This economic growth was driven mainly by higher private consumption, government expenditure as well as an increase in economic activity. Economists believe that there is a bright future for Philippine's economy if this trend in spending continues.