Socio-economic Planning Secretary Karl Chua said further easing restrictions on people’s movement can infuse additional P40 billion in economic output per week and bring the economic output back to pre-pandemic levels.
Despite the challenges brought by the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, the government is sticking to its growth target of 7 to 9 percent this year.
“As of the end of 2021, we were P100 billion short from reaching pre-pandemic level. I still believe that in the first quarter, we will exceed the 2019 level. And there has been significant developments in the domestic economy shifting to Alert Level 1, which added more than P9 billion per week,” Chua told the AskNEDA forum yesterday..
“Hopefully, we can shift the entire country to Alert Level 1, that will add another P16 billion per week. And hopefully, we can open all face -to- face schooling, which will add another P12 billion per week,” Chua added.
Chua said the Philippines has a “very strong” domestic economy that can withstand the effects of the ongoing war despite its toll on oil prices that dampen confidence.
“We are still very much on track to our projected growth targets for this year,” he said.
Chua added the conflict is causing a global supply shock which tightens supply of key commodities like oil.
There are also four channels where the economy can be affected – commodity prices, the financial markets, the trade, and also overall confidence.
“The magnitude depends on how long this crisis will be. It depends on how long or how short this crisis will be. The most important … is that we build on our domestic base. We are still far from achieving the normal life that we last saw in 2019,” Chua said.
“Most of the country is still not yet on Alert Level 1. Schools have not fully opened, only 1,000 plus schools have started face-to- face learning and we have 60,000 schools so there is still a lot more that can be done from the domestic side where we have control to caution any risks coming from the global side,” he added.
