THE local output growth in the first three months of the year has likely gone through an “economic upturn,” as seen in select indicators leading to the announcement of the first-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) growth, the central bank said.
In the recent highlights of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’s (BSP) latest monetary policy-setting meeting on March 26 that were released just this week, the seven-man Monetary Board of the central bank expressed optimistic views on the local economy in the months of January to March this year.
“Indicators of domestic demand remain firm. The latest business-cycle analysis of the BSP and various leading economic indicators monitored by the BSP point to a continued economic upturn in the first quarter of 2015,”the BSP bared in the recent highlights of the meeting.
The BSP said this is consistent with the results of the first quarter of 2015 Business Expectations Survey, showing positive confidence in the first half of 2015.
In addition, the BSP said that the purchasing managers index (PMI) suggests that the Philippine economy was still in an expansion phase during the period.
“Based on the January 2015 Labor Force Survey of the Philippine Statistics Authority, the unemployment rate declined to 6.6 percent from 7.5 percent a year ago,” the BSP also cited.
The BSP also said that global economic prospects—whose growth and development is crucial for the Philippines’s trade performance—have turned “slightly more positive” during the period although still at an uneven pace.
Earlier, Moody’s Analytics forecasted first-quarter growth to surge to 7.3 percent.
This is higher than the 6.9-percent growth seen in the last three months of 2014.
The quarter’s forecast is within the government’s growth target bracket for the year at 7 percent to 8 percent.
The most recent forecast was attributed by Moody’s Analytics to higher infrastructure investment and government spending, alongside robust domestic demand.
“Electronics account for half of the nation’s exports, and they improved through the first quarter thanks to improved US tech demand,” Moody’s said.
At this rate, Moody’s Analytics said the first-quarter GDP report of the Philippines will cement the country’s place as one of the “strongest performing economies” during the period.
Bianca Cuaresma and Genivi Factao