LA TRINIDAD, Benguet – The Cordillera office of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA-CAR) reported that the province’s economy registered a growth of 5.1 percent last year which was slightly lower than the 6.1 percent growth in the previous year.
PSA Benguet chief statistical specialist Imelda Buyuccan said that the province’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2022 was valued at PhP78.78 billion which is P3.79 billion higher than the 2021 level of PhP74.99 billion.
The PSA Benguet official claimed that in terms of the share of the industries to the province’s GDP, services dominated, accounting for 61.5 percent of the overall economy.
Further, she added that industry shared 22.6 percent while agriculture, forestry and fishing had a 15.9 percent share.
Among the 16 production industries, agriculture, forestry, and fishing had the largest share with 15.9 percent while the next three industries with the largest share to the province’s economy were wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles with 15.8 percent; financial and insurance activities with 12.8 percent and mining and quarrying with 11.5 percent.
Of the 5.1 percent recorded growth in 2022, Buyuccan explained that wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles contributed the most, accounting for 1.4 percentage points followed by financial and insurance activities, and accommodation and food service activities with 0.6 percentage points and 0.5 percentage points, respectively.
Among the 6 economies in the Cordillera, Benguet had the second largest share in the region’s economy constituting 23.3 percent of the overall PhP337.6 billion gross regional domestic products last year.
The province’s economic performance was shown in the provincial product accounts which has been an established mechanism to measure the overall performance of the 82 provinces and 1 highly urbanized city within the pilot regions.
For this year, Benguet continued the annual production of the provincial product account with the collection and compilation of needed critical data from various agencies and stakeholders.
Benguet continues to show its dominance in agriculture, forestry and fishing with its more than 45 percent contribution to the region’s agriculture sector as it banked on its double digit performance on poultry production and crop production although it was pulled down by the negative growth rate in livestock which was primarily caused by the prevalence of the African Swine Fever that had affected the local livestock industry over the past several years.
Evidently, the services sectors is slowly but surely taking over the agriculture sector as the province’s economic driver because of the put up of various service-oriented establishments triggered by the aggressive promotion of the agri and ecotourism industries of the province considering that the said establishments generate jobs, economic activities and sources of livelihood for the people. By Dexter A. See