Myles Gernale

4/7/2019

According to nationencyclopedia.com, The Philippines has 3 main economic sectors

which all have contributed greatly to the economy in terms of GDP. This includes industry,
service, and agriculture. In the previous years, the service sector has grown continuously.
Agriculture, although still important, continues to decline. Estimates from 1997 reveal that
agriculture contributed 20 percent to GDP, industry contributed 32 percent, and services
dominated the economy with 48 percent of GDP. In 1999 the growth of GDP maintained at 3.2
percent. Economists blamed the slow growth on the lacking performance of the industry sector,
which grew by 0.5 percent. With the end of the dry spell brought by El Niño, the agriculture
sector's performance bounced back and grew to 6.6 percent, the highest rate in decades.
Services grew by 3.9 percent that year because of the strong performance in retail. Maximum
economic growth for 1999 and 2000 was impeded by continuous political crises in the Estrada
administration that caused foreign and international lending agencies to lose confidence. In
2000 GDP posted a 3.9 percent positive growth rate, with industry growing 4 times faster than
it did in 1999. Services continued its strong performance, with a 4.4 percent increase over its
1999 figures. Another article by psa.gov.ph, The Philippine Statistics Authority (2018), Among
the major economic sectors in 2017, Industry recorded the fastest growth of 7.2 percent,
followed by Services which grew by 6.8 percent during the year. On the other hand, Agriculture,
Hunting, Forestry and Fishing recovered from a decline of 1.2 percent in 2016 and posted a
growth of 4.0 percent in 2017. And according to www.globalsecurity.org, The service sector
contributed more than half of overall Philippine economic output, followed by industry (about a
third), and agriculture (less than 20%).

According to the statistics, I suggest we focus on the agriculture sector. The fact that the
Philippines is an agricultural country and its people are heavily reliant on the natural resources
especially the rice. The agricultural sector seems to be the always one that falls behind the
other sectors that the agricultural sectors needs to catch up with the other sectors and it must
be balanced that it should also not overpower the other sectors.
Source/s:
https://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/economies/Asia-and-the-Pacific/Philippines-
ECONOMIC-SECTORS.html
https://psa.gov.ph/regional-accounts/grdp/highlights

https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/philippines/economy-sectors.htm