Trade woes dim PH growth outlook this year

Singapore-based United Overseas Bank (UOB) has downgraded its 2025 economic growth forecast for the Philippines amid global trade uncertainties, which, in turn, bolstered its expectations of further interest rate cuts.

- BY BEN ARNOLD DE VERA

In its new quarterly global outlook report for the third quarter of 2025, published this month, UOB slashed its Philippine gross domestic product (GDP) growth projection to five percent, from six percent previously.

UOB's revised forecast falls below last year's below-expectations growth rate of 5.7 percent, as well as the government's more ambitious six-to-eight percent target for this year.

Following the "downbeat" 5.4-percent year-on-year real GDP expansion in the first quarter of 2025—“even before tariffs hit and ongoing global trade threats,” as UOB noted—it expects second-quarter growth to slow to 5.2 percent, the third quarter to 4.9 percent, and the fourth quarter to 4.6 percent.