MANILA - Along with the world's biggest economies, the Philippines has been showing "signs of recovery" from the global crisis, the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) said on Wednesday.

According to NSCB Secretary-General Romulo Virola, a number of the country's major economic indicators have started to show signs of recovery as early as February this year.

He said the pace of remittance growth has picked up to 4.9% in February from flat growth rates of 0.1% and 0.8% in January and December, respectively.

The contraction in Philippine exports and imports have also started to ease to 27% and 24.3% in May from their declines of between 30% and 40% in the previous months.

On top of these, Virola cited the improving value and volume of production index, exports and imports of electronic and agricultural products, the composite stock index, and volume of cars, among others.

Virola said these are among the 81 flash indicators identified by a special NSCB task force assigned to measure the impact of the crisis in the Philippines. The indicators are grouped into 8 sectors, which include prices, production, employment, sales, external sector, national government cash operations, money and banking, and tourism.

"The levels and movements of these indicators can serve as early warning signals of economic crisis or recovery when the indicators start to shift significantly from their normal levels," he said.

For instance, NSCB's flash indicators showed that the country's capacity utilization rate improved to 77.8% in February from a low of 77.5% in the previous month. It has gone no way but up since then, reaching 80.1% or almost pre-crisis level in May.

The NSCB defined capacity utilization rate as the ratio of output to the largest volume capacity at which a factory can operate. A higher capacity utilization rate means factories have been more efficient in creating their respective products.

Last May, Virola himself warned that the Philippines was on the brink of recession after the country's gross domestic product (GDP)--the measure of the value of goods and services produced by the economy--barely expanded, posting a mere growth of 0.4% in the first quarter.

Virola went on and said that the second quarter would be more challenging as leading economic indicators for the period "breached into the negative territory, confirming the all too real threat of a recession."

Except for money supply and the consumer price index, all the other indicators--foreign exchange rate, total merchandise imports, wholesale prices, hotel occupancy rate, tourist arrivals, number of new businesses, stock price index and electricity consumption--posted declines, according to him.

"These indicators suggest that economic activities in the second quarter are not as much as in the first. If this downward trend continues, we might have a recession," Virola told reporters.

The dismal GDP growth in the first three months prompted the country's economic managers to cut the full-year target to a range of 0.8% to 1.8% from the previous 3.1% to 4.1%.

International and multilateral organizations have had nothing but bleak growth forecasts for the economy, led by the International Monetary Fund's -1% growth estimate. The World Bank has also lowered this year's growth projection for the country to -0.5%, while the Asian Development Bank is mulling to downscale its outlook from the current 2.5%.

But amid these dreary forecasts, economic research group Institute for Development and Econometric Analysts Inc. recently said the Philippines might escape recession with a 1.74% GDP growth this year.