The country's economic performance remains impressive despite probably falling short of its 2024 target of 6 to 6.5 percent gross domestic product because of the series of typhoons during the last quarter of previous year.

In a press briefing on Friday, National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said: "We fall short of the target but that’s understandable as I’ve said because of the external and domestic factors that are outside of our control."

"But nonetheless, you know the performance of the economy was quite impressive compared to our neighbors in the entire Asia, we still are second, third among the major emerging economies in Asia as top performer," he added.

The Philippine economy grew 5.2 percent in the third quarter, bringing the nine-month average to 5.8 percent but below the target set by the Development Budget Coordinating Committee.

Balisacan said heavy damage in agriculture because of the storms are one of the major factors that affected the economy's performance.

"Agriculture was hit hard by the typhoons. We expect agriculture to have contracted by two percent for at least I think in 2024 because of the heavy losses in the fourth quarter and also in the third quarter of last year, but (we) expect to have that speedy recovery in 2025. So, that’s one and you know agriculture is 10 percent of our GDP and almost a third of our employment, so has a big impact," he said.

"Otherwise, the rest of the economy (is) doing well, of course, doing well, meaning in relation to those constraints that I mentioned but we could have done well if the environment is more favorable," he added.

Last month, the DBCC made a last-minute revision to the 2024 growth target, narrowing it from the original range of 6 to 7 percent to 6 to 6.5 percent.

Balisacan said for 2025 the government is "aiming to achieve six to eight percent gross domestic product (GDP) growth".

"We do believe that the current configuration of the government budget will allow us to focus on critical services particularly for social protection, for food security and for our basic infrastructure, including our flagship projects," he said. Robina Asido/DMS