PHL manufacturing surges 10.3% in April y-o-y, fastest in three months

The country's manufacturing sector surged at the start of the second quarter, reflecting a strong domestic demand that could sustain economic growth.

 

In a statement Tuesday, the National Statistics Office (NSO) reported that factory output as volume of production index (VoPI) grew at an annual rate of 10.3 percent in April, a three-month high. 

 

This is a significant increase from the 0.1 percent annual uptick in March, and is the fastest since January's revised 16.6 percent growth.

 

ING Bank Manila economist Jose Mario Cuyegkeng said the latest manufacturing data showed factories were feeding domestic demand and not solely dependent on exports. 

 

"This looks good for second quarter growth, as it means there are manufacturing activities that are not export oriented and there's something that is being produced for a robustly growing domestic demand sector," he told GMA News Online in a phone interview. 

 

Weak external demand caused exports to sag in the first four months of the year. 

 

In the first quarter, the Philippine output grew by 7.8 percent, the fastest in Asia. 

 

The growth was "was boosted by the strong performance of manufacturing and construction," Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said during the release of gross domestic product data last month. 

 

The NSO said the acceleration in manufacturing could be attributed to robust growth in five sectors. "Five of nine major sectors exhibited two-digit growth in production," the NSO noted. 

 

Sectors which grew by double digits are as basic metals at 94.5 percent, chemical products at 77.6 percent, machinery except electrical at 28 percent), food manufacturing at 21.6 percent, and electrical machinery at 21.1 percent. —VS, GMA News