By Kris Crismundo/PNA
MANILA — The Philippines’ economic expansion last year may have been slower than expected, but the country’s top trade official said investment commitments from companies in 2018 will fuel growth this year.
Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Secretary Ramon Lopez, in a text message Thursday, described the 6.2-percent gross domestic product (GDP) growth for the full year of 2018 as “reasonably good growth.”
However, Lopez noted that he expected a faster growth for the manufacturing sector.
Government data showed that manufacturing grew by only 3.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2018, which declined from 7.9 percent growth in Q4 2017.
“I was expecting a faster growth from manufacturing, but some sectors may be affected by supply side challenges, such as input sourcing,” he said.
But the trade chief is optimistic about the manufacturing sector’s potential for advancement this year, with investment pledges at the Board of Investments (BOI) alone reaching the PHP900-billion level.
The bulk of the commitments last year were in the manufacturing sector, amounting to PHP409.3 billion.
“With record high investments in the last two years, we see these translating into stronger industry sector, particularly manufacturing and construction and some in services sector,” Lopez added.
For IHS Markit Chief Economist for Asia Pacific Rajiv Biswas, he said that the 6.1-percent growth in Q4 2018 was resilient despite the peak of oil prices in October last year, slowing down manufacturing output, and easing export orders.
“The outlook for 2019 is for another year of robust growth, at a pace of around 6 percent year on year, underpinned by strong private consumption and rapid growth in public infrastructure spending under the Duterte administration’s ‘Build, Build, Build’ program,” said Biswas.
“However, the Philippines economy will also face external headwinds to growth from the ongoing United States-China trade war, slowing European Union growth and the recent downturn of the global electronics orders,” the economist added.
