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Philippine growth slows after election splurge

MANILA — Philippine economic growth slowed to 6.5 percent in the July-September period as an election period spending splurge tapered off but consumer spending held firm, data showed on Thursday.

The year-on-year figure compared with 7.9 percent growth in gross domestic product the previous quarter, when a presidential election was won by Benigno Aquino.

Consumer spending levels supported growth even as bad weather sank farm output, the government said.

“The fourth consecutive quarter of El Nino-driven decline in agriculture, the diminished spending by government, and the substantial deceleration of mining and quarrying contributed to the slowdown,” a government statement said.

Services, which comprise half the economy, grew 7.7 percent from a year earlier, as benign inflation drove people to spend more and to build and buy more homes, even as government spending on infrastructure petered out.

Industry rose 9.2 percent while agriculture, which accounts for about a fifth of the economy, shrank 2.5 percent.

“On the demand side, consumers’ confidence coupled with the benign inflation resulted in higher household spending,” the statement said.

For the first nine months of the year the economy advanced 7.5 percent from a year earlier.