Government resuscitates economy to 1.5 percent GDP growth

The government stimulus package resuscitated the domestic economy during the second quarter as GDP grew by 1.5 percent from 4.2 percent last year.  The modest economic growth benefited from the reinvigorated Construction and Mining & Quarrying Sectors and the big push by Government Services.  However, it was adversely affected by the second consecutive quarter of decline in the Manufacturing Sector.

On the demand side, growth came mainly from investments in Construction, Government Consumption Expenditure and Household spending that rose above its conservative levels in the first quarter.

The continued inflow of remittances from our overseas workers buttressed the NFIA, which went up by 29.7 percent from 15.8 percent last year, and pushed GNP to grow by 4.4 percent from 5.3 percent in 2008.

The seasonally adjusted estimate of the GDP grew by 2.4 percent effectively avoiding the recession that had threatened when GDP declined quarter on quarter by 2.1 percent in the first quarter of the year.  Likewise, GNP jumped by 3.0 percent from the previous quarter.

On the production side, Services buoyed up the economy with a modest 3.1 percent growth as AFF posted its lowest growth of 0.3 percent since the first quarter of 2005 while industry declined, albeit lower, at 0.3 percent for the second consecutive quarter.

As population reached an estimated 92.0 million, per capita GDP declined by 0.5 percent from 2.1 percent in the previous year while per capita GNP decelerated to 2.4 percent from 3.2 percent.  On the other hand, Per capita PCE slowed down to 0.3 percent from 2.1 percent.