Hanoi (VNA) - The World Bank (WB) haspredicted that the Philippines will continue its robust growth in 2017 with an economicexpansion of 6.8 percent, a slight drop compared to the earlier forecast of 6.9percent it gave in April.
However, it maintained the April prediction for 2018 growth at 6.9 percent.
The WB said that the Philippines’ governmentconsumption and investment growth was slightly weaker due to lower publicspending in the first quarter of 2017, but private consumption and exportsremained high.
Consumption is expected to grow at 5.6 percentin 2017 and 6.1 percent in 2018. The bank said remittance flows play a role inmaintaining this consumption growth in the medium term, adding remittancesincreased by 8 percent in the first quarter of this year, up 5 percentyear-on-year.
It also said in line with the graduallyimproving global economy and trade, strong demand of the Philippines' maintrading partners will boost the country’s exports.-VNA