Service Sector Fuels Region 2’s Economy

he National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) reported that the services sector in Cagayan Valley contributed the largest chunk in last year’s regional growth.

Gina V. Dayag, chief-Policy Planning Division, said Cagayan Valley is largely an agricultural region but surprisingly more than half of the region’s economy is powered by the service sector.

She said based on the latest economic performance, the region’s service sector grew at 54.6 percent while the agriculture and industry sectors achieved growth at 30.3 percent and 15.1 percent, respectively.

Dayag said the service sector gained positive growth rate of 10.5 percent in the previous year while the agriculture and industry sectors’ growth rate both decelerated at 7.1 percent and 2.2 percent, respectively.

“Although, the deceleration of the agriculture and industry sectors was attributed to the series of strong typhoons that hit the region in 2016 and 2018,” Dayag added.

She also stated that the good performance of the service sector is also attributed to the influx of big business establishments as well as the growing micro, small and medium enterprises in the region.

Dayag, however, said that the region’s agriculture sector remains to be a potential major economic driver.

“We just need to capacitate our farmers to increase their production and help them look for a bigger market for their produce,” she added. (ALM/PIA-2 Cagayan)

Cagayan Valley Region 2 2017 Economic Performance Agriculture service sector industry sector