THE Western Visayas economy slowed down last year but remains one of the biggest contributors to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) said.

The NSCB said the Gross Regional Domestic Product (GRDP) estimates showed that Region 6’s growth decelerated from 7.7% in 2007 to 4.4% last year.

The GRDP measures the goods and services produced in each of the geo-political regions of the country. It is the regional share of the country’s GDP or total products and services produced in the country.

The GRDP also outlines the industries and factors that contribute to the regional economy, and indicates the pace at which the regional economy is moving on an annual basis.

Presentacion Penpillo, NSCB regional head, presented the 2008 GRDP in Western Visayas in a news conference Wednesday.

Penpillo attributed the growth slowdown to the effects of the flashflood brought about by typhoon Frank in the second quarter of 2008.

Ro-Ann Bacal, National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) regional director, said Western Visayas remains the 4th fastest growing region out of the 17 regional units in the country.

“We experienced typhoon Frank in the middle of 2008 and oil prices increases in the last quarter of last year. But the prospects of Region 6 remains bright despite the slowdown because of our strong agricultural and fisheries and tourism sectors,” Bacal said.

In terms of contribution to the national GDP growth, Western Visayas increased its share from 7.2% in 2007 to 7.24% in 2008.

Despite the slowdown, Western Visayas’ GDP growth of 4.4% is higher than the country’s 3.8% growth last year.

SERVICE SECTOR

The NSCB data showed that the service sector is the huge contributor to the region’s total economic output at 47.9%. But the sector’s growth plunged from 8.6% in 2007 to 2.2% in 2008.

The service sector is composed of 6 sub sectors: transportation, communication and storage (TCS), trade, finance, ownership of dwellings and real estate (ODRE), private services and government services.

The weakening of the region’s economic performance hit hardest the TCS sub-sector which posted the highest deceleration from 9.8% in 2007 to 3.3% in 2008.

Trade also slowed down from 10.7% to 1.2% while finance plunged from 9.1% to 1.5%. Private services also decelerated from 8.2% to 2.2%.

Government services accelerated from 2.4% in 2007 to 5.8% last year while ODRE went up to 3.5% from 2.5%.

INDUSTRY SECTOR

The industry sector, which accounted 27.5% of the region’s economy, also slowed down from 13.2% in 2007 to 8.9% last year.

The deceleration is attributed to drastic slowdowns in the sub-sector of mining and quarrying (44.9% in 2007 to 7.5% in 2008) and construction (17.5% to 9.1%).

The manufacturing sub-sector, which contributed 17.6% to the industry sector, managed to offset the slowdown as it grew to 9% from 7.7% in 2007.

“This was fueled by the strong performance of food and beverages, sharing 87% of the overall manufacturing sub-sector,” the NSCB said.

Electricity and water sub-sector sustained its momentum at 9.5% in the past two years due to increased power generation.

AGRICULTURE

The agriculture, fishery and forestry sector, which contributed 24.6% to the region’s economy, performed impressively by recovering from 0.8% growth in 2007 to 4.1% last year.

“The gains were propelled by the growths of palay (production) at 6.3%, sugarcane (19.8%) and corn (11.4%). Livestock and poultry expanded by 4.34% and 3.93%, respectively,” the NSCB added.

There was also impressive growth in the forestry sub-sector which jumped from 18.4% in 2007 to 103.6% in 2008. This is attributed to increased volume of cut trees from private plantations.

By Francis Allan L. Angelo