Philippine economy grows 7.5% in second quarter

Whew!!! The figures are quite impressive: a 7.5 percent growth rate in the second quarter this year, the highest in 20 years! Says the National Statistical Coordination Board:

Continued favorable economic conditions such as stable interest rates and strong peso, resilient agriculture sector, vibrant industry and services sectors, plus election-related spending and intensified infrastructure investments further strengthened the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to an impressive 7.5 percent growth in the second quarter of 2007 from 5.5 percent last year. The expansion in GDP came from the strong performances of Trade, Construction, Transportation, Communication and Storage (TCS) and Manufacturing.

On the demand side, sustained increase in household spending, rise in merchandise exports and investments in construction served as major engines of growth. Continued inflow of remittances from overseas workers resulted in a hefty 16.6 percent expansion in the Net Factor Income from Abroad (NFIA) and pushed the Gross National Product (GNP) to an 8.3 percent growth, a substantial improvement over the 6.4 percent growth in the same quarter last year.

I’ll have a careful look at the numbers later but it seems that the recent ones have been quite consistent with recent trends. In the first quarter, we grew by 6.5 percent. A few weeks ago, the leading economic indicators (LEI) seem to have given us an encouraging sign early on. Man, if we could sustain this growth trend in the next ten years, we will wake up one day to a totally different, essentially better, Philippines.