Region 7 grew slower in 2015; still PH’s 4th largest economy

ALTHOUGH it grew slower in 2015 than it did the year before that, the Central Visayan economy remained the fourth largest in the country.

Its Gross Regional Domestic Product (GRDP) per capita increased by P2,000 to reach P64,800, from P62,000 in 2014, said National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) 7 Director Efren Carreon.

In terms of absolute value, Central Visayas’s economy has expanded to P866.9 billion at current prices. The only larger regional economies in the country are the National Capital Region (NCR), Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon), and Central Luzon.

Director Carreon’s statement was in relation to a report of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) that Central Visayas grew at slower rate of 4.8 percent in 2015 compared with 7.8 percent in 2014.

“Although short by P3,900 from our target of P68,700, the GRDP per capita in Central Visayas still stands as the fourth largest in the country. As we all know, GRDP per capita is an indicator of living standards,” Carreon said. The region’s population is also growing. “The results of the 2015 Census of Population show that Central Visayas now has a population of more than six million. If the GRDP were a pie, and there are six million people sharing the pie, naturally, each person’s share would get smaller if the pie remains the same size,” Carreon said.

Fortunately, GRDP grew at a faster rate (4.8 percent) in 2015 than the average annual population growth rate of 1.76 percent from 2010 to 2015, he said.

The major contributor to the region’s economic output was still the services sector, followed by agriculture, hunting and forestry.

Industry contributed 4.3 percentage points to the 7.8 percent GRDP growth in 2014, but last year went down to negative 0.2 percentage point.

“We had anticipated the agriculture sector to post a positive growth in 2015, however slight. While total production remained low, a recovery was evident in the fishery, livestock and poultry subsectors with relatively better performances in 2015 vis-a-vis the previous year,” Carreon said.

He added that only the crops subsector continued to perform below par especially in the second semester, considering this was at the height of El Niño.

“Worth noting in the agriculture sector is that Central Visayas has remained among the country’s top five producers of livestock and poultry despite unfavorable climatic condition,” Carreon said.

As the Central Visayan economy is driven by the services sector, faster growth in this sector was also expected.

Total visitor arrivals to Region 7 was up 14.3 percent in 2015, over the figures in 2014. A surge in foreign arrivals accounted largely for this growth, boosted by the region’s hosting of many international meetings and events, notably the series of APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) meetings in Cebu from August to October.

“The 4.6 million visitors in 2015 surpassed the target of 4.4 million arrivals set for Central Visayas for the whole year,” Carreon said.