The Philippine economy grew 11.8 percent in the second quarter from a year ago to end five quarters of contraction amid the challenges of the global pandemic.
The Philippine Statistics Authority said Tuesday the gross domestic product expanded 11.8 percent in the April-June quarter, the fastest in 32 years since the 12.0 percent growth in the fourth quarter of 1988.
It was an improvement from a revised 3.9-percent decline in the first quarter and 17-percent drop in the second quarter of 2020.
The gross national income expanded 6.6 percent in the second quarter, even as the net primary income from the rest of the world fell 53.8 percent.
National Statistician Dennis Mapa said the GDP growth was driven by the expansion of all sectors, except agriculture.
Data showed that industry and services grew by 20.8 percent and 9.6 percent in the second quarter, respectively. Agriculture, forestry and fishing contracted 0.1 percent in the same period.
Among sub-sectors, the main contributors to the second-quarter growth were manufacturing, which expanded 22.3 percent; construction, 25.7 percent; and wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles, 5.4 percent.
On the demand side, household final consumption expenditure improved by 7.2 percent, while gross capital formation increased 75.5 percent. Exports went up 27.0 percent and imports rebounded 37.8 percent in the second quarter.
Government final consumption expenditures were down 4.9 percent.
The PSA said that on a seasonally-adjusted basis, the GDP posted quarter-on-quarter decline of 1.3 percent. GNI recorded 1.5 percent quarter-on-quarter growth.
The GDP contracted by 9.6 percent in 2020, the worst since the end of World War 2, as the government enforced border restrictions and lockdown to contain the spread of the virus.
Economic managers predicted that the GDP would recover between 6 percent and 7 percent this year, led by the faster pace of COVID-19 vaccination that would reinvigorate consumer and business confidence.
The government, however, placed the National Capital Region under the Enhanced Community Quarantine or the most stringent form of lockdown in August in the face of rising number of new cases of COVID-19 Delta variant.
Metro Manila or the NCR would be under ECQ from Aug. 6 to 20. Economic Planning Secretary Karl Kendrick Chua estimated that the ECQ would reult in production and economic losses of P150 billion a week, displace more than 600,000 workers and increase the number of the poor by 250,000.
Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez earlier assured the public that the government was working round the clock to curb the effects of COVID-19 on the economy.
“The government is waging war on COVID-19 on all fronts. Our strategy has three main components: our fiscal stimulus; a recalibrated budget for 2021; and continued massive investment in infrastructure,” Dominguez said.