AFP, Manila :
Growth slowed sharply in the Philippine economy in the third quarter because of typhoon damage and falling public spending, officials said Thursday.
The economy grew by 5.3 percent in the three months to September-below expectations-and 5.8 percent through the first nine months of the year.
Deputy chief statistician Romeo Recide added that gross domestic product (GDP) growth in this period fell to the lowest level since the last quarter of 2011.
The government has set a GDP growth target of 6.5-7.5 percent for the whole of 2014.
“Given this quarter’s performance… even meeting the low end of the target growth rate for the year could pose a big challenge,” Economic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan told a news conference.
Typhoon Rammasun left 111 people dead or missing, caused a million people to flee their homes and left millions of others without power for several days across the country’s economic heartland in mid-July.
Fierce winds and destructive floods generated by typhoons led to a 2.7 percent year-on-year contraction in farm output, Balisacan said.
Apart from agriculture, he said government consumption and public construction activities slowed as President Benigno Aquino’s government adjusted to “new spending protocols”, some imposed to fight corruption.
He also cited the “lingering negative impact” of Super Typhoon Haiyan, as well as delays in the layout of the government’s massive post-typhoon reconstruction programme across the devastated central Philippines.
Growth slowed sharply in the Philippine economy in the third quarter because of typhoon damage and falling public spending, officials said Thursday.
The economy grew by 5.3 percent in the three months to September-below expectations-and 5.8 percent through the first nine months of the year.
Deputy chief statistician Romeo Recide added that gross domestic product (GDP) growth in this period fell to the lowest level since the last quarter of 2011.
The government has set a GDP growth target of 6.5-7.5 percent for the whole of 2014.
“Given this quarter’s performance… even meeting the low end of the target growth rate for the year could pose a big challenge,” Economic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan told a news conference.
Typhoon Rammasun left 111 people dead or missing, caused a million people to flee their homes and left millions of others without power for several days across the country’s economic heartland in mid-July.
Fierce winds and destructive floods generated by typhoons led to a 2.7 percent year-on-year contraction in farm output, Balisacan said.
Apart from agriculture, he said government consumption and public construction activities slowed as President Benigno Aquino’s government adjusted to “new spending protocols”, some imposed to fight corruption.
He also cited the “lingering negative impact” of Super Typhoon Haiyan, as well as delays in the layout of the government’s massive post-typhoon reconstruction programme across the devastated central Philippines.
