2016 GDP growth seen at 6.9%

Budget Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno

The economy likely grew by a robust 6.9 percent in 2016 as the typhoons that hit the country toward the end of last year unlikely dented agricultural production, Budget Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno said.

“Typhoon ‘Nina’ hit parts of the Bicol Region on the final week of the year. Its impact on the three super-regions—the National Capital Region, Calabarzon and Central Luzon—is muted,” Diokno told the Inquirer.

Diokno’s projection was close to the high end of the government’s 6-7 percent gross domestic product (GDP) growth target for 2016. The government will announce the fourth-quarter and full-year 2016 GDP growth figures on Jan. 26.

The GDP expanded by an average of 7 percent during the first nine months of 2016, among the fastest across Asian economies.

First-half economic expansion was partly boosted by election-related expenditures and sustained robust household spending as well as public and private investments.

In the third quarter of last year or the first three months of the Duterte administration, the economy grew by a better-than-expected 7.1 percent partly as the agriculture sector recovered.

During the July-to-September period, the agriculture sector grew 2.9 percent year-on-year, reversing five straight quarters of decline. The services and industry sectors, meanwhile, registered growths of 6.9 percent and 8.6 percent, respectively.

As such, the economy needed to grow by only 3.4 percent in the fourth quarter to reach the lower end of the government’s “conservative” growth target for 2016.

After President Duterte assumed office in July last year, the Cabinet-level, interagency Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) cut the 2016 GDP growth target to 6-7 percent from the earlier goal of 6.8-7.8 percent set by the Aquino administration, explaining that the new administration still had to adjust.

The government targets GDP growth of 6.5 to 7.5 percent this year before further rising to 7 to 8 percent until the end of President Duterte’s term in 2022.