PHL economic indicators show upbeat Q4 trend

The Philippine economy is growing more in the fourth quarter as the country’s leading economic indicator (LEI) moved up from the third quarter. The National Statistical Coordination Board on Wednesday said the LEI "continued to rebound in the fourth quarter of 2011 to 0.168 from a revised 0.116 in the third quarter of 2011." "The fourth quarter LEI gathered acceleration after it weakened in the second quarter of the year," the NSCB added. LEI is a measure that gives planners and decision makers a glimpse of where the economy is headed for — near-term — by using past indicators that move several quarters ahead of the business cycle. Of 11 indicators that make up the composite LEI, seven contributed positively: number of new businesses, visitor arrivals, consumer price index, stock price index, foreign exchange rate, hotel occupancy rate, and electric energy consumption. The four negative contributors were total merchandise imports, money supply, terms of trade index, and wholesale price index. "From the third quarter to the fourth quarter LEI, there were three shifts in the direction of contribution: number of new businesses and visitor arrivals, from negative to positive, and wholesale price index, from positive to negative," the NSCB said. Philippine gross domestic product posted grew 3.4 percent in the second quarter, 8.9 percent a year earlier. — CMA/VS, GMA News