The National Economic and Development Authority said yesterday that the Philippine economic growth may exceed the higher-end target this year because of the election-related spending and strong remittances from overseas Filipino, a government press release said.

"My gut feel is that we may have to revisit the macroeconomic figures. We feel that we may have underestimated the growth potential of the Philippine economy this year," Acting Socioeconomic Planning Augusto Santos said in the press release.

Given this, Santos said, the economy as measured by Gross Domestic Product "could be higher than 3.6 percent this year."

An indicator of economic performance, GDP is the amount of final goods and services produced in the country.

For the year 2010, the government is projecting a GDP growth of between 2.6 percent and 3.6 percent this year.

Last year, GDP grew by only 0.9 percent or at the lower end of the official target range of 0.8 percent to 1.8 percent. The Philippines’ growth last year was the weakest since 1998.

Santos also projected that the May 2010 election is likely to contribute about 5 percent to the economy this year.

"In 2007, our GDP growth was (around) 7 percent. Out of that 7 percent, the contribution of election spending was 0.34 percent. So, I can say roughly, election spending contribution to GDP growth this year will more or less be 5 percent of whatever is that GDP growth rate number. These are all rough calculations," Santos said in the press release.

Besides election spending, Santos said the driver of the economy this year is exports, OFW remittances and business process outsourcing.

"Increasing OFW remittances are expected to boost consumption," he said.

The National Statistics Office earlier reported that exports expanded by 5.1 percent in November, ending the 13 straight month of contraction.

While OFW remittances in the first 11 months of 2009 rose by 5.1 percent to $ 15.78 billion from $ 15.01 billion for the same period in 2008.

Multilateral agencies like World Bank and Asian Development Bank expect the Philippine economy to grow 3.5 percent this year.

Standard and Poor’s, on the other hand, said GDP may grow 3.7 percent in 2010, the press release added.*

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