2019 GDP growth expected to hit 6.1%

THE Philippines is likely to register 6.1-percent economic growth this year, an IHS Markit economist said, despite posting lower-than-expected growth in the first quarter.

In a comment over the weekend, Rajiv Biswas, IHS Markit chief economist for Asia and the Pacific, said “[o]verall GDP (gross domestic product) growth for calendar 2019 is expected to be 6.1 percent year-on-year, moderating only slightly from the 6.2 percent pace recorded in 2018.”

His statement comes days after the Philippine Statistics Authority announced that the country’s GDP hit a four-year low of 5.6 percent, compared with 6.5 percent in the first quarter of 2018 and 6.3 percent in the last three months of 2018.

The latest figure — the lowest since the 5.1 percent recorded in the first three months of 2015 — was mainly blamed on the delay in the approval of this year’s national budget.

This delay, Biswas said, “resulted in weak overall growth in public expenditure during Q1 2019.”

Government consumption hit 7.4 percent year-on-year in January to March.

The country’s economic team earlier said growth could have been higher if the country operated on this year’s budget.

Despite the weaker-than-forecast GDP, Biswas said economic growth would likely rebound starting this quarter, now that the budget had been approved.

“[G]rowth momentum is expected to be boosted in Q2 2019 and Q3 2019 as government expenditure strengthens following the signing of the 2019 budget,” he said.

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