The Daily Manila Shimbun

 

Manufacturing output climbs to 24.8 percent in February

April 5, 2018



Manufacturing grew by 24.8 percent in February compared to 9.8 percent in the same period last year, as measured by the Volume of Production Index in the Monthly Integrated Survey of Selected Industries  of the Philippine Statistics Authority.

This signals a continued improvement from its slowdown since the second quarter of 2017, the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) said Thursday.

“The increasing working-age population, rising productivity, improvement in business environment, and aggressive infrastructure development will also help spur growth in the sector,” said NEDA Officer-in-Charge (OIC) and Undersecretary for Policy and Planning Rosemarie Edillon in a statement.

Edillon is the Officer-in-Charge of NEDA while Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia is on official travel abroad.

The Value of Production Index  increased by 23.6 percent. This led to the three-month moving average growth rate of both indexes remain to the positive territory at 12.9 and 11.7 percent,

“The industries’ outlook for both the current and succeeding quarters remains bullish with the expectation of sustained robust demand, improvement in production capacity, new product lines, and enhanced marketing strategies,” she said.

“However, risks to growth remain. The government must remain cautious of increasing inflation which may lead to higher cost of production for manufacturing firms. Strategies are needed to be pursued to sustain the upward growth trajectory of the manufacturing sector,” Edillon noted.

She said that to attain this, the government needs to encourage all forms of innovation in manufacturing and manufacturing-related services, and to enhance the capacity of domestic firms especially micro, small and medium enterprises.

“We need these initiatives to produce raw materials and intermediate goods that meet the requirements of international markets. We also need to pursue bureaucratic and regulatory reforms that incentivize compliance across all levels of government to eliminate red tape and reduce the cost of doing business,” Edillon said. DMS