Philippine growth rate hits 6% for sixth year

Bloomberg

The Philippines retained its position as one of the world’s fastest-growing economies after expansion exceeded 6 percent for a sixth year.
Gross domestic product increased 6.7 percent in 2017, the Philippine Statistics Authority said in Manila on Tuesday, matching the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists. The economy rose 6.6 percent in the fourth quarter from a year
earlier, slightly lower than the 6.7 percent median estimate, prompting the peso and stocks to drop.
The Philippines, one of this decade’s economic stars, is set to keep its momentum with the World Bank predicting growth of more than 6 percent a year until 2019.
President Rodrigo Duterte is reforming tax laws to boost the nation’s competitiveness and raise revenue, while pushing ahead with an ambitious $180 billion infrastructure program that includes Manila’s first subway.
“The growth is becoming a lot more sustainable than people expected,” said Alice Fulwood, an economist at UBS Group AG in Singapore. “We expect government stimulus and expansion of credit to facilitate an acceleration in 2018. We would be looking at inflation and balance of trade, if they deteriorate that raises a question mark on the sustainability of growth.”
Consumer spending, which makes up about 70 percent of the economy, rebounded last quarter, gaining 6.1 percent.