PH now 'fastest growing' in ASEAN 5
By Kim Arveen Patria | Yahoo Southeast Asia Newsroom | 31/10/2013
Yahoo Southeast Asia Newsroom/Yen Baet - Yen Baet also took this shot of the Makati skyline. (Photo by Yen Baet)
The Philippines is now the fastest-growing among the five largest economies in Southeast Asia also known as the “ASEAN 5,” the statistics bureau said Wednesday.
The National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) claims the Philippines beat Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand in terms of economic growth in recent quarters.
The country’s gross domestic product (GDP), the main benchmark of economic growth, rose by 6.8 percent in 2012 and by 7.6 percent in the first six months of 2013.
These growth rates are higher than any other country in ASEAN 5 and also topped the bloc’s average growth of 5.8 percent in 2012 and 5.1 percent in the first half of 2013.
The Philippines has thus broken the trend of being the slowest growing among the five biggest ASEAN countries for six years, NSCB Director-General Jose Ramon Albert said.
“Putting these growth figures in the ASEAN context, the country’s growth has been consistently below the ASEAN and the ASEAN 5 average growth rates from 2005 to 2011,” he said.
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