Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) regional director Edgardo Pare said the gross regional domestic product (GRDP) of Central Luzon was pegged at P773.28 billion in 2016, approximately P67 billion more than the region’s economic output in 2015 at P706.34 billion.
“This expansion which contributed 0.9 percentage point to the country’s 6.9 percent growth, is primarily driven by the manufacturing industry, particularly from the manufacture of food, beverage and other transport equipment,” Pare said.
GRDP measures the economic performance of a region in terms of goods and services produced. It measures the relative contribution of the three major economic industries namely agriculture, hunting, forestry, and fishing (AHFF), industries, and services.
Pare noted that this increase in the GRDP is almost double compared to last year’s 5.3 percent growth amid significant revenue increases in the three major economic sectors.
“Industry doubled from 7.1 per cent in 2015 to 16.0 per cent in 2016, while AHFF maintained its 0.6 per cent growth rate for two consecutive years,” he said.
Pare noted that manufacturing, which accounted for the biggest share in the industry sector, also posted a double-digit increase from 7.0 per cent in 2015 to 17.4 per cent in the previous year.
“In the services sector, Central Luzon posted a growth of 5.9 per cent. This is because four of its sub-industry posted expansions for the said year. These include financial intermediation (6.5%); public administration and defense; compulsory social services (5.8%); trade and repair of motor vehicles, motorcycles, personal and household goods (5.4%); and other services (8.1%),” he also reported.
In AHFF, agriculture and forestry accelerated from 0.8 to 0.9 point. However, a slight drop of 0.1 percent for the same period was observed in the fishing industry.
“The good news, however, is that for 2016, Central Luzon has overtaken Calabarzon in terms of economic growth rate and ranked second among the 17 regions in terms of GRDP. At the same time, it remained among the top three regions nationwide in terms of regional shares to the national economy,” Pare noted.
