Business and Economy
Economic managers hike several macro targets
FILE: Budget and Management Secretary Benjamin Diokno (PNA photo by Avito C. Dalan)
MANILA — Members of the inter-agency Development Budget Coordinating Committee (DBCC) have revised upwards some of the government’s targets on back of the economic development here and overseas.
In a briefing, Budget and Management Secretary Benjamin Diokno said imports growth target for 2018 was hiked to 9 percent from 7 percent.
The latest 2018 imports growth target is now at the same level as the 2019-22 target, which in turn was kept.
The peso-US dollar rate for 2018 was also changed to PHP49-52 from PHP48-50.
“This adjustment, however, should not be a cause of concern because as you know the impact of this in our fiscal…
a peso depreciation is actually favorable to our fiscal position,” he said.
To date, the local currency is trading at 50-level to a greenback. It finished this week’s trading at 50.
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In December 2016, economic managers revised the peso-dollar rate for 2017-18 from 45-48 to 40-50 due to the expected impact of interest rate normalization in the US.
Also revised on Friday is the 2018 crude oil price assumption from USD50/barrel to USD65/barrel. The earlier assumption is USD45-60/barrel, which is the assumption for 2019-22.
LIBOR (London InterBank Offered Rate) rate target for 2019-22 was adjusted to two to three percent from 1.5-2.5 percent, which is the original assumption from 2018-22.
On the other hand, the 6.5-7.5 percent Gross Domestic product (GDP) target for 2017 and the seven to eight percent target for 2018-22 was kept along with the two to four percent inflation target for 2017-20.
As of November 2017, inflation averaged at 3.2 percent.
“We think we’re doing well that we didn’t find a need to change much of our assumptions until 2022,” Diokno said.
DBCC is chaired by the Secretary of the Department of Budget and Management and other members are officials from the Department of Finance, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, National Economic and Development Authority, and the Office of the President.
