Philippines Q2 GDP rises 6.3% y/y, just above forecasts

THE Philippine economy grew 6.3 per cent in the second quarter from a year earlier, driven by government spending and investment, the statistics agency said on Thursday, stronger than upwardly revised 5.8 per cent growth in the first quarter.

That took first-half GDP growth to 6.0 per cent, putting the economy on track to meet the full-year growth target of 6.0 per cent to 7.0 per cent, economic planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan told a news conference.

Inflation, which has hampered consumer spending, will revert to its longer-term downtrend, Balisacan said.

Economists in a Reuters poll had expected annual gross domestic product growth of 6.2 per cent in the April-June quarter.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, the economy grew 0.5 per cent quarter-on-quarter, below both the 0.9 per cent growth forecast in a Reuters poll and the 1.3 per cent pace in the first quarter. REUTERS