MAJOR revisions in the estimates for financial and insurance activities prompted the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) to revise downward the country’s third quarter GDP growth.
On Wednesday, a day before the preliminary fourth quarter and 2021 full-year GDP growth will be announced, PSA said third quarter 2021 growth was now at 6.9 percent, lower than the 7.1 percent in the preliminary estimate made last year.
The PSA said this was largely due to the downward revision in the Financial and Insurance Activities (FIA) growth to 3.9 percent from the initial estimate of 6.4 percent.
“The revision in FIA was caused mainly by revision in Insurance from 25.8 percent to 10.5 percent due to the updated financial statements of insurance companies as consolidated by the Insurance Commission,” PSA Assistant National Statistician Vivian R. Ilarina told the BusinessMirror.
The PSA said other factors that contributed to the downward revision were Professional and business services (PBS) and Real estate and ownership of dwellings (Real Estate).
Data showed the growth of PBS was revised downward to 10.6 percent from 11.5 percent while Real Estate growth was revised to 3.8 percent from 4.7 percent.
PSA Macroeconomic Accounts Service Division Chief Randy Polistico clarified to the BusinessMirror that PBS includes professional, scientific and technical activities as well as administrative and support activities, where the revisions came from.
“For the PBS, revisions came from additional responses of the establishments from the Quarterly Survey on Phil Business and Industry [QSPBI]. For Real Estate, revisions are due to additional availability of financial statements from major companies,” Polistico said.
Meanwhile, the growth rate in Net Primary Income (NPI) from the Rest of the World recorded an upward revision to a contraction of 50.6 percent from a decline of 52.3 percent.
PSA also said the growth rate in Gross National Income (GNI) in the third quarter of 2021 recorded a downward revision to 2.7 percent from 2.8 percent.
The PSA revises the GDP estimates based on an approved revision policy (PSA Board Resolution No. 1, Series of 2017-053) which is consistent with international standard practices on national accounts revisions.
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