PH economy accelerates 6.7% in 2017

Franz Lewin Embudo and Jhazzie Basit | January 25, 2018

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As weighed by the gross domestic product (GDP), the Philippine economy raised 6.7 percent in 2017, midst the fastest in the region in spite of a decelaration in the business process outsourcing (BPO) field.

The GDP of the country had increased at a lower rate of 6.6 percent in the fourth quarter, a pace look-alike to that a year ago but lower than the 7-percent gain in the third quarter.

The economy gained last year, yet lower than the 6.9 percent sealed in 2016, in fact as many Filipinos said they experienced poverty last December, including that the benefits of economic increase did not move down to the poor.

News of the GDP expansion also came in the wake of an Oxfam report that the richest 1 percent cornered 82 percent of the wealth generated in 2017, while the poorest half of humanity got nothing.

According to Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto M. Pernia, the GDP's progress last year was the fastest in the region after China’s 6.9 percent and Vietnam’s 6.8 percent.

Growth dimly slowed last year in the inexistence of election-related spending that pushed upward to the progress in 2016, according to Pernia.

“You can see that our decline is really very moderate at 0.2 percent of 1 percentage point,” he pointed out.