Region 8’s 2011 economic growth lower than RDC target plan

THE 2011 economic growth in Eastern Visayas nailed 1.8 percent, way below than 5.26 percent target under the six-year Regional Development Plan, the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) said Friday.

Last year’s growth momentum slowed down from two percent a year before, mainly due to weak performance of the service sector, which accounts 35.6 percent of the regional economy.

The sector – the region’s second contributor – declined from 6.1 percent in 2010 to 4.1 percent last year.

The industry sector, the largest contributor of the local economy, recovered from a negative 0.05 percent growth in 2010 to 0.4 a year after. With a gross added value of P60.8 billion, manufacturing subsector grew to 4.5 percent last year from negative 1.7 percent in 2010.

“This was largely due to the increase in the production of basic metals. Mining and quarrying also posted a hefty growth of 62.3 percent from 19.2 percent a year ago,” NSCB Regional Head Evangeline Paran said.

The region’s major mineral products are chromite and magnetite sand from Eastern Samar and Leyte.

On the other hand, the delayed release of government budget for infrastructure project has thrown in to significant 15 percent drop in the construction subsector.

Same level of decrease was also experienced by the electricity, gas and water supply sub-sector last year as a result of lower power demand for power from the Leyte Geothermal Power Field.

Agriculture and forestry subsector accelerated to 1.3 percent growth in 2011 from 0.7 a year ago. Contributing to the better performance is the increase in the production of palay, coconut, sugarcane and root crops.

Disturbed by frequent rains and oil price hikes, the fishing subsector declined to 1.9 percent in 2011 from 0.9 percent a year earlier, according to NSCB.

Though the region comprised of vast agricultural land and forested area, the sector is the lowest contributor to the local economy pegged at only 20.5 percent.

“This is very surprising that manufacturing sector is the biggest contributor. More people are engaged in agriculture but their value of production is lower than other sectors. The farming sector is performing below its potential,” said National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) Regional Director Bonifacio Uy.

Uy said the economic slowdown was also experienced in other parts of the country and at least 10 other regions missed their respective growth targets in 2011.

Uy told reporters that they’re still hoping to achieve a consistent five percent annual growth set under the Regional Development Plan until 2016 with more focused on three industries: agribusiness, tourism and information, and communication technology.

Among the development outlook presented by Neda that would push for economic growth this is the Samar Pacific Coastal Road, Millennium Challenge Corporation road project in Samar, Leyte water supply expansion, focused assistance on high value products, public private partnership, improvement of the Tacloban Airport, and expanded implementation of the conditional cash transfer.

The release of the 2010 and 2011 data have been delayed as the NSCB employed a new estimation methodology. (Leyte Samar Daily Express)