MANILA, Aug. 17 (Xinhua) -- The Philippine economy grew 6.5 percent in the second quarter of this year, the government announced on Thursday.
The gross domestic product (GDP) expansion during the April-June period was faster than the 6.4 percent growth recorded in the first quarter of this year, but slower than the 7.1 percent recorded in the same period last year.
With the 6.5 percent growth in the second quarter, Economic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia said that the Philippines remains as one of the best-performing economies in Asia.
"We are well on track to meeting our full-year target growth of 6.5 to 7.5 percent," Pernia told a news conference.
He said the Philippines has overtaken Vietnam's 6.2 percent growth and Indonesia's 5.0 percent growth rate.
This puts the country as either the second or third fastest growing major Asian economy, next only to China, Pernia said.
Malaysia and Thailand have yet to release their GDP data for the second quarter.
Among the major economic sectors, industry recorded the fastest growth of 7.3 percent during the second quarter, government data showed. Services expanded by 6.1 percent, and agriculture grew 6.3 percent.
Among the three major economic sectors, data showed that services had the highest contribution to the GDP growth in the second quarter of 2017 with 3.5 percentage points. This was followed by industry with 2.5 percentage points and agriculture with 0.5 percentage point.
Given the solid economic performance in the first half of the year, Pernia said the Philippines "only needs to grow by 6.5 percent to meet at least the lower bound of our full-year target of 6.5 to 7.5 percent."
"With all of us exerting all efforts, and moving in sync, to improve our economic performance, I can see the country demonstrating a more impressive performance for the rest of the year and even over the medium term," Pernia said.
He said the bird flu outbreak and the weakening peso would not affect the projected growth.
