Upward revisions failed to lift Q3 GDP growth
Some key sectors posted faster growth than initially estimated in the third quarter of 2024, but that was not enough to trigger an upward revision to the broader gross domestic product (GDP) expansion during the period.
GDP, or the sum of all products and services created in an economy, expanded by 5.2 percent in the third quarter, as previously reported, the Philippine Statistics Authority reported on Tuesday.
This, despite upward revisions in the performance of some sectors after taking into account a larger set of data that include those belatedly reported by agencies and therefore were not considered in computing initial GDP numbers.
Such revisions are typically made by the PSA to better reflect the state of the economy.
State statisticians said education grew at a revised rate of 4.1 percent in the third quarter, up from the old reading of 2.6 percent.
Similarly, manufacturing grew at a faster rate of 3 percent, from 2.8 percent initially, after the revisions.
Lastly, the growth of financial and insurance activities had been upgraded to 9.1 percent from the preliminary figure of 8.8 percent.
The PSA reported the revisions a few days before it releases the GDP data for the fourth quarter of 2024, including the full-year average growth.
An Inquirer poll of 12 economists yielded a median forecast of 5.8 percent growth in the fourth quarter of last year which, if realized, will mark a faster pace of expansion from the preceding three months.
But that would not be enough for the average 2024 growth rate to hit at least the low-end of the 6 to 6.5 percent goal of the Marcos administration.
The same Inquirer survey of economists also yielded a median estimate of 5.8 percent for 2024 growth which, if realized, would nevertheless register an improvement from the 5.5-percent expansion in 2023.
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