PSA says Western Visayas economy jumps to 9.3% in 2022

INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

ILOILO CITY—The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) on Thursday, April 27, announced that Western Visayas’ economy rose by 9.3 percent in 2022, the highest in the Philippines.

In a news conference, PSA-Western Visayas officer-in-charge Nelida Amolar said that the Gross Regional Domestic Product (GRDP) was valued at P955 billion last year, rising from P874.1 billion in 2021.

GRDP is a measure of the economic performance of a region, covering the value of goods and services produced, usually reported in terms of growth rate and expressed in absolute terms or at constant prices.

The current GRDP is measured based on constant prices from 2018.

The GRDP growth rate was the biggest in the country last year, even higher than the 7.6 percent national growth rate, followed only by the Cordillera Administrative Region with 8.7 percent.

The GRDP growth rate is contributed by 7.7 percent in the services sector valued at ₱582.6 billion, and 2.0 percent in the industry sector worth ₱205.1 billion, while the agriculture, forestry, and fishing sector declined by 0.4 percent, but still bringing in ₱167.3 billion.

As to the actual growth rates, the top three sub-industries with the most growth in 2022 were accommodation and food service activities at 47.3 percent, transportation and storage at 41.5 percent, and other services at 37.5 percent.

The bottom three, meanwhile, were human, health, and social work activities (4.2 percent), public administration and defense, and compulsory social activities (3.8 percent), and electricity, steam, water, and waste management (0.3 percent).

The agriculture, forestry, and fishing sub-industries suffered the most losses, with a 2.0 percent growth decline.

Amolar said last year’s regional inflation rate, which averaged at 6.6 percent, did not affect the GRDP heavily, citing the actual growth rates.

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JPV/abc