PSA tags poverty-stricken Eastern Visayas as fastest growing PHL region in 2015

TACLOBAN CITY, July 28 (PNA) -- The Eastern Visayas Gross Regional Domestic Product (GRDP) grew by 3.9 percent in 2015 from a contraction of 2.4 percent the previous year, making it as the fastest growing region in the country, offsetting economic losses incurred from the 2013 Yolanda catastrophe.

Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) Regional Director Wilma Perante, in a press briefing on 

Thursday, said the regional economy accelerated by 6.3 percent between 2014 to 2015, gaining PHP152.21 billion. Eastern Visayas or Region 8 bested six other regions in the country with positive economic performance last year, she added.

The services sector, with a share of 41.9 percent to the GRDP, posted a 6.8 percent growth, a significant rebound from four percent decline the previous year. This was due to the strong performance in the transport, storage and communication subsector.

“Other major contributors to the sector’s growth are financial intermediation and trade of vehicles and personal and household goods,” Perante said.

The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) tagged the sector as the strongest driver of the regional economy. The sector has generated thousands of jobs, absorbing 45 percent of the region’s working population first semester of 2015.

“We also observed gradual growth in the value-added share of most components of the services sector, primarily accounted for by the resurgence of businesses. For instance, in Tacloban City, the region’s capital, we see newly-established hotels and food establishments, which is evident of a vibrant service-oriented economy,” said NEDA Regional Director Bonifacio Uy.

Industry sector, which accounts 41.4 percent of the regional economy, recovered from the 3.3 percent decrease in 2014 to 4.4 percent growth last year.

Subsectors such as mining and quarrying; construction; and electricity, gas and water supply have shown double-digit growth last year.

“While the manufacturing subsector contributed the largest share to the region’s industry, it contracted by three percent, although better than the 16 percent slump in 2014,” he explained.

The NEDA regional chief reported that weak global demand for copper must have affected the supply of metallic inputs in the production of cathodes at the Philippine Associated Smelting and Refinery Corp., one of the heavy industries situated in Isabel, Leyte.

Agriculture, hunting, forestry and fishing (AHFF) continued to decline, but at a slower rate from 12.7 percent in 2014 to 3.5 percent in 2015. Farming and forestry recovered from negative 3.6 percent.

Fishing also managed to improve from negative 18.2 percent to negative 3.2 percent, according to the PSA.

Although most of the region’s families are dependent on AHFF, the sector’s share to the local economy plunged to 16.7 percent from 18 percent in 2014 and 20.1 percent in 2013.

“Broad-based growth was not realized given the setback in the agriculture and fisheries sector – a challenge that consistently hounds the region. Natural threats such as the effects of El Nino and the impact of typhoon Nona have aggravated the already fragile agricultural production of the region after super typhoon Yolanda,” Uy pointed out.

GRDP measures the value of goods and services produced by a region. The figure of all regions sums up to the gross domestic product (GDP) of a country. The country’s GDP growth in 2015 is pegged at 5.9 percent.

Despite economic growth in 2015, poverty incidence in the region has worsened between 2012 to 2015, placing the region as the country’s second poorest, based on the latest Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES) result. (PNA)

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