PH Economy Expanded To 5.9% In Q3

Following a sluggish performance in the second quarter, the Philippine economy bounced back to 5.9 percent in the third quarter of this year, the government recently reported.

The third-quarter economic print was broadly based, with all major economic sectors posting growth.

The result was significantly higher than the 4.3% in the previous quarter but lower than the 7.7% recorded in the same quarter last year and is also markedly higher than the 4.9% median in a poll of economists.

Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said that the third-quarter economic print was broadly based, with all major economic sectors posting growth, with agriculture growing at 0.9%, industry at 5.5%, and services at 6.8%, noting that this performance makes our economy the fastest among the major emerging economies in Asia that have released their third-quarter 2023 GDP growth.

Data show that Vietnam grew at 5.3%; Indonesia and China, at 4.9%, and Malaysia at 3.3%. Balisacan, however, emphasized that the economy must achieve a 7.2% year-on-year growth in the fourth quarter of 2023 to meet the government's 6.0-to-7.0% target for this year.

Meanwhile, farm output contracted further in the third quarter (Q3) as livestock and poultry gains failed to offset a decline in crops and fisheries, the Philippine Statistics Authority reported.

The value of agricultural and fisheries production fell by 0.3% in July to September, reversing from the 1.6% growth posted in the same period last year but narrowing from the 1.2% drop posted three months earlier.

At constant 2018 prices, production for the period amounted to P412.41 billion from the year-earlier P413.6 billion. Year-to-date, farm output remained positive with growth at 0.2 percent. This was down slightly, however, from the January-September 2022 uptick of 0.3 percent.

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