MANILA – The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) is confident about the economy recovering to pre-pandemic level as early as the first quarter of 2022 despite the ongoing tensions between Ukraine and Russia.
Socioeconomic Planning Secretary and NEDA chief Karl Kendrick Chua said the domestic economy is in a “very strong” position to withstand global headwinds, as he believes that tensions between the two countries are “temporary in nature”.
“So I think we are still very much on track to our projected growth targets for this year,” he said in a virtual press briefing Tuesday. “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 PHP9 billion per week.”
Chua also hoped that the entire country can shift to Alert Level 1 that will generate PHP16 billion per week of economic activity, and open all face-to-face schooling which will add PHP12 billion per week.
“We are still very early and a big part of our economic growth potential this year will come from the domestic side because we still have a lot of potential. We haven’t reached and gone back to a more normal way of living. In fact, there is a suggestion to put NCR (National Capital Region) and other places in Alert Level 0. We are looking at that also,” he added.
The Philippine economy expanded by 5.6 percent in 2021, slightly lower than the pre-pandemic 6.1-percent expansion in 2019.
Chua underscored the need to fully reopen the economy and provide subsidies to the affected sectors to cushion the impact of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
He said the Philippines is affected by a global supply shock due to the conflict, tightening the supply particularly of fuel which the country fully imports.
“So this will affect supply and we have seen the (oil) prices go up significantly and our response is to immediately provide targeted subsidies to the two most affected sectors –public transport and agriculture and fisheries– and that we believe will temper any further increase in inflation,” he said.
The Department of Budget and Management has released a total of PHP3 billion for the Department of Transportation’s fuel subsidy program (PHP2.5 billion) and the Department of Agriculture’s fuel discount program (PHP500 million). (PNA)
