Purisima vows sustained resiliency of PHL economy on continued improvement of debt-GDP ratio

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MANILA – Department of Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima is confident on the continued resiliency of the Philippine economy, in part due to the sustained improvement of the proportion of government liabilities vis-a-vis the domestic output.

DOF data show that ratio of general government (GG) debt to gross domestic product (GDP) further improved to 36.

8 percent at the end of the third quarter of 2015 compared to the 37.2 percent same period in 2014.

As of end-September this year, GG liabilities stood at PHP4.8 trillion, 5.1 percent up than year-ago’s PHP4.6 trillion.

The increase was traced to the PHP238 billion increase of the national government (NG) debt.

Also, liabilities of the local governments slightly rose by 1.4 percent to PHP69.4 billion as against the PHP68.5 billion during the same period in 2014.

However, the ratio improved as the domestic output continue its solid pace.

Purisima said that with the backdrop of “very uncertain global environment” the drop in the share of government’s debt to domestic output “is part of parcel of our commitment to keeping the Philippines resilient.”

“We can expect the downtrend to persist further,” he added.