The agriculture and fishery sector contracted 1.2 percent in 2020 but is expected to rebound by 2.5 percent in 2021, the Agriculture Department said Wednesday.
“We believe that despite the Taal Volcano eruption, COVID-19 pandemic, continued incidence of the African swine fever and a series of strong typhoons, the country’s agriculture, and fishery sector has remained pliant and resilient, facing head-on and surmounting the huge challenges last year,” Agriculture Secretary William Dar said in a statement.
Fourth-quarter agriculture and fisheries production fell 3.8 percent from a year ago, pulled down by lower harvests of rice and corn.
Meanwhile, the Philippine Statistics Authority reported the slight revision of the third-quarter gross domestic product contraction to a lesser 11.4 percent from 11.5-percent decline previously.
The PSA said major contributors to the revision were real estate and ownership of dwellings, from -22.5 percent to -19.4 percent; education, from -21.4 percent to -17.8 percent; and other services, from -53.4 percent to -49.9 percent.
The net primary income from the rest of the world recorded downward revision from -28.2 percent to -29.0 percent while the gross national income maintained its growth rate of -13.0 percent for the third quarter.