MANILA - The Philippines will likely cut its economic growth forecast target for this year after recent data showed growth stalled in the first quarter, a senior official said Wednesday.

Manila has predicted growth of 3.1-4.1 percent for 2009 but last week said it had achieved just 0.4 percent expansion in the three months to March.

President Gloria Arroyo is to meet senior economic advisers on June 11 to review the numbers, Rolando Tungpalan, deputy chief of the economic planning ministry, told reporters.

"I think a realistic assessment will have to be made," Tungpalan said, adding: "I think generally there is a more likely movement downward."

Tungpalan said the central bank was "surprised" that successive cuts in its key interest rates since October, to 17-year lows, "did not translate to higher growth."

Overseas-based Filipino workers also stepped up remittances to relatives in at home but this did not translate into consumer spending, he added.

"It can now be logically explained that the consumers were just rational and saving for the rainy days," Tungpalan said.

An electronics industry official said Wednesday that the worst of the global slowdown seems to be over and the sector now sees full-year exports to be down 20 percent from 2008, an improvement on earlier predictions of a 30 percent fall.

Electronics make up more than half of the Philippines exports.