Philippine Economic indicators Dec 2011

• Gross Domestic Product

• Growth for the first nine months of 2011 was at 3.6 percent, below the lower end of the whole year target of 4.5 percent.   
• Debt problems of trading partners, low government spending, decline in agriculture and fishing due to unfavourable weather and the high cost of fuel were factors that contributed to the relatively low growth.
• Consumer Spending and the Services sector help save the domestic economy, the latter recording 1.2 percent growth for the third quarter from 2.8 percent in the previous quarter, as all subsectors recorded positive growth.
• Government believes there are more favorable prospects for the fourth quarter of 2011 due to: anticipated higher demand on account of the Yuletide and harvest seasons; a more stable macroeconomy; a broadly steady consumer sentiment; the continued inflows of remittances from Filipinos overseas; the reported higher level of business confidence relative to the previous quarter; and the full implementation of the PhP72 billion Disbursement Acceleration Program of the government. 

• Budget Deficit

• The Philippines recorded a budget deficit of P52.994 billion from January to September this year, about 80% lower than the P234.350-billion programmed for the period. 
• Year-on-year, revenues posted a 13.68% increase in the whole third quarter. Year-to-date revenues now reached the trillion-peso mark at P1.017 trillion as against last year’s P894.716 billion.
• The government’s catch-up spending continues to reflect on the fiscal numbers as September expenditures further sped up with interest payments continuously going down.
• As of the third quarter, government spending reached P1.017 trillion, 7.31% lower year-on-year. Much of the decrease however can be traced to interest payments, which declined 9.04%, while actual spending was only down by 6.85%.

• Inflation / Interest rates

• Average inflation for Q3 2011, went down to 4.4 percent from the previous quarter’s rate of 4.5 percent. From January to October 2011, inflation rate stood at 4.5 percent, within the 3.0 to 5.0 percent target for the year.
• The rise in the October inflation was due mainly to higher prices of most food items, notably vegetables and fish, which reflected the agricultural damages wrought by typhoons Pedring and Quiel. The upward adjustments in electricity and water rates also contributed to the higher inflation during the month. 
• The Monetary Board decided to maintain the BSP RRP and RP rates at 4.5 and 6.5 percent

• Foreign Direct Investments

• Total FDI approved in the third quarter of 2011 by the four major investment promotion agencies (BOI, CDC, PEZA and SBMA) amounted to PhP 25.0 billion, 32.0 percent higher than the PhP 19.0 billion committed in the same period last year.  Meanwhile, total approved FDI for the first nine months of 2011 amounted to PhP 87.3 billion, an increase of 9.9 percent from last year’s PhP 79.4 billion.  Top prospective investing countries include Japan, Korea, and the US.  
• Manufacturing remained as top recipient of FDI commitments as it stands to receive PhP 9.6 billion. Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning came in second at PhP 5.1 billion, followed by real estate activities at PhP 4.8 billion.

• Net Portfolio Investments

• Transactions for the first 10 months of the year resulted in net inflows of US$3.4 billion, or growth of 37.3 percent from the US$2.5 billion recorded a year ago. Registered investments in PSE-listed securities amounted to US$7.4 billion, up by 9.6 percent compared to US$6.7 billion last year.
• Transactions for the month of October yielded net inflows of US$237 million, 58.6 percent higher than the US$150 million level for September 2011 but 78.2 percent lower than the US$1.1 billion recorded in 2010. 
• Singapore, the United Kingdom, the United States, Hong Kong, and Luxembourg were the top five investor countries for the month.
• Year-to-date, of all equities markets in the Asia-Pacific region, only the Philippines is up (+1.4% year-to-date). The PSE is the sixth-best performing exchange in the world so far in 2011.

• Remittances

• Remittances from overseas Filipinos coursed through banks remained robust in September 2011 at US$1.7 billion, registering an 8.4 percent year-on-year increment. The steady growth in remittance flows through September this year resulted in a cumulative year-on-year expansion of 7.1 percent to reach US$14.8 billion.
• For the nine-month period, the top ten country sources of remittances included the U.S., Canada, Saudi Arabia, the U.K., Japan, United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Italy, Germany and Norway. The remittance flows from these countries amounted to USD$12.5 billion, which represented 84.9 percent of total remittances reported by banks.
• Remittances from the UK for January-September 2011 increased by 7.52%

Jan – Sep 2011 (in USD)

2011                                       2010                                       Growth Rate %

707,688,000                         658,194,000                         7.52

• Gross International Reserves

• The country’s GIR as of end-October 2011 stood at US$75.8 billion, higher by US$0.6 billion compared to the end-September 2011 GIR. The appreciable build-up in the reserves level at end-October 2011 resulted mainly from the foreign exchange operations and income from investments abroad of the BSP as well as revaluation gains on the BSP’s gold holdings. 
• The preliminary end-October 2011 GIR could cover 11.2 months worth of imports of goods and payments of services and income.  It was also equivalent to 10.6 times the country’s short-term external debt based on original maturity and 6.4 times based on residual maturity

• Exports / Imports

• Total exports receipts for the January-to-September period declined by 3.1 percent to US$37.185 billion in 2011 from US$38.362 billion in the comparative nine-month period in 2010.
• Exports are now projected to grow by five percent and imports by 13 percent this year.
• UK Total

(Jan – Jun, in millions USD)

                     2011                                          2010

Export        Import     BOT              Export      Import    BOT