The economy’s full-year growth may fall below the government’s target range for the year, following the recent implementation of stricter quarantine measures due to the surge in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases, the country’s socioeconomic chief said yesterday.
Karl Kendrick Chua, socioeconomic planning secretary, said in the Sulong Pilipinas virtual forum the actual growth for the year may be lower than programmed although there is still time to catch up.
“The Development Budget Coordination Committee has approved a 6.5 percent to 7.5 percent growth this year and up to 10 percent growth in 2022. Although the recent imposition of ECQ (enhanced community quarantine) and MECQ (modified ECQ) may lower our growth estimate, but we are still early in the year and there is ample opportunity to catch up,” Chua said.
“We started the year with stronger economic data. Our unemployment rate has improved, and our total job creation has actually exceeded the pre-pandemic level by 600,000. We are also seeing the trade data improving. So all of these are being incorporated in our projection,” he added.
“Unfortunately, we have also experienced five weeks of combination of bubble, ECQ or MECQ, and that will affect our growth, and we are waiting for the first quarter data to make a more objective assessment if there will be any adjustment,” Chua also said.
The first quarter preliminary national accounts is scheduled to be announced on May 11.
“(We imposed an) ECQ and MECQ but it is different from last year, we allow people to work, our public transport is functional, construction is ongoing, so there are some changes from how we experienced quarantine last year,” Chua said.
“And although this ECQ and MECQ period may affect our growth, on the other hand, we still have eight full months of the year to recover, and there are three ways to recover and to be on track with our growth,” he added.
He said the first one is a more risk-managed approach to dealing with the virus.
“Instead of (imposing) quarantine (on an) entire area, we can have more localized quarantine that addresses the areas or sectors with the highest risk, instead of affecting everyone,” Chua said.
Second is the full implementation, and acceleration, of the government’s recovery programs, amounting to around 15.4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in both fiscal, monetary and financial support.
Last is the timely implementation of the vaccine deployment program.
“We very much hope supply will come soon, so that we can continue to vaccinate the critical sectors of our society,” Chua said.
“Our recovery is slated starting this year, and we will achieve pre-pandemic level in 2022, middle of 2022,” he added.
In the same event, Carlos Dominguez, Department of Finance secretary, said the Philippines’ direct response to the crisis so far amounted to P2.76 trillion, equivalent to 15.4 percent of GDP.
“Despite supply challenges worldwide, we are fully rolling out our vaccination program. This will allow us to safely reopen more of our economy, and restore jobs and incomes of our people,” Dominguez said.
He reiterated that the target is to inoculate at least 70 million Filipinos or 100 percent of the adult population within the year.
“We have arranged for the delivery of more than 140 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines for this year. About 15 percent will be delivered in the first half of this year and 85 percent in the second half,” Dominguez said.
