Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez yesterday expressed confidence the Philippines is at pace with other countries in the region in terms of economic recovery this year, buoyed by the unhampered operations of essential sectors like manufacturing and business process outsourcing (BPOs).
Lopez, however, admitted the Philippines was the worst hit among the countries in Southeast Asia especially in 2020 due to the strict lockdowns.
He cited studies which said unlike in a financial crisis where the healing process can take five to seven years, countries can recover faster during a pandemic.
“We are going be in a solid path of growth. There is a big potential to go back to growth path averaging 5 to 6 percent this year. Bigger countries are going back to 3 to 5 percent growth and we are not falling behind. We are comparable,” Lopez said.
He said quarantine policies adopted by government this year allowed the operation at 100 percent of essential industries like manufacturing and BPOs that have sustained both production for local and exports.
Exports have jumped 72 percent in April while the volume of production index registered a 160-percent growth.
BPOs registered a 2 percent growth, picking up to 5 percent the whole of 2021.
“In our policies in quarantine classification, there is a favor to the economic side to allow more essential businesses to operate at higher capacities unlike before.. and especially now we increased the capacities even more. We are in for a good rebound in 2021,” Lopez said.
“With all of these, we can go back to economic recovery.”
Government’s emerging gross domestic product (GDP) growth projection is six to seven percent.
GDP shrank by 4.2 percent in the first quarter, the fifth consecutive quarter of decline.
