Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said economic recovery to pre-pandemic level will likely happen in the second half of 2022 or in 2023 yet, delayed by the Delta variant that disrupted the reopening of the economy.
Lopez told the Senate hearing on the budget of the Department of Trade and Industry the momentum will only be sustained if the country maintains its reopening with no disruptions like a strict lockdown, accompanied by a stepped up vaccination to reach 70 percent of the qualified population by the end of the year.
“We had expected the recovery this year had it not been for Delta,” Lopez said.
Compared with pre-pandemic, gross value added (GVA) was still down by 6 percent in the first half of 2021 to P8.9 trillion compared with P9 trillion in the same period in 2019. But this is up 3.69 percent from first half of 2020
Only five of 15 subsectors exhibited increases to pre-pandemic levels: electricity, steam, water and waste; information and communication; financial and insurance; public administration and defense and; human health and social work.
The biggest losers among the sectors is the accommodation and food service and the transportation and storage whose GVA fell 42 percent and 39 percent, respectively.
Lopez at a press conference of the Lufthansa Technik Philippines yesterday said he sees the road to the country’s recovery to still have some speed bumps ahead despite the gains, albeit small.
“It’s not a smooth sailing path moving forward,” said Lopez.
But Lopez said the government will stay the course and will do all the economic reforms and recovery programs that it has to do.
“We move forward and manage risks ahead. Even as we deal with COVID-19 (new coronavirus disease 2019), we manage the risks,” Lopez said in his speech
He said the Philippines is displaying signs of recovery.
The GDP is up 11.8 percent in the second quarter of this year; exports year-to-date (YTD) from January to July is up 19.5 percent or equivalent to $42.39 billion, significantly higher compared to $35.4 billion in 2020 and even higher than the pre-pandemic figure of $40.82 billion in 2019, signaling a recovery in the exports sector. Foreign direct investments ( FDI) YTD from January to June is also up 40.7 percent equivalent to $4.3 billion, much higher than the $3.05 billion in 2020 and pre-pandemic figures of $3.6 billion in 2019.
However, August unemployment was back to 8.1 percent from an improved 6.9 percent the month before in July.
