PSA to measure contribution of ‘digital economy’ to GDP

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) is looking to measure as well the contribution of the "digital economy" to the country's overall economic growth.

"We were instructed to already have an estimate of the contribution of digital economy to economic growth," National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Undersecretary and National Statistician Lisa Grace Bersales said on the sidelines of the Seamless Philippines 2018 in Pasay City on Wednesday.

The Asian Development Bank defines digital economy as a broad range of economic activities that use digitized information and knowledge as key factors of production.

These include the internet, cloud computing, big data, fintech, and other new digital technologies are used to collect, store, analyze, and share information digitally and transform social interactions.

The PSA started in August the initial efforts to determine the contribution of the digital economy to the country's gross domestic product (GDP), Bersales.

"That's something we have to work on because we have to start with a framework of what are included in the digital economy... It may take us maybe two years to have that kind of satellite account where we will have an account on digital economy but we have these surveys," Bernales said.

The PSA chief said it was imperative to measure digital economy's contribution to the country's growth as the sector is already growing.

"Because it's a growing sector of the economy doon sa OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries ang estimate na nila 5 percent ng GDP is contributed by digital so we have to know the contribution of digital in the same way," Bersales said.

"In the PSA we have satellite accounts for tourism and for health... For example, sa tourism alam na natin na 12 percent is contributed to our GDP," she said.

The PSA chief noted that knowing the contribution of the digital economy to the country's growth will also help in formulating policies and programs that could help the sector flourish.
"Dapat alam ng government at ng various sectors kung ano 'yung contribution ng digital economy kasi kung ito ay nagbibigay ng malaking contribution dapat maalagaan din siya ng government," Bersales said.