Palace assures to sustain economic gains

“We assure the public that the government will sustain these very promising economic numbers for the remaining half of 2018 in order to provide better jobs and more comfortable lives for more Filipinos,” Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said in Palace press briefing. (TOTO LOZANO/PRESIDENTIAL FILE PHOTO)

MANILA — Malacañang on Thursday assured the economic gains will be sustained with the Philippine economy forecasted to grow faster in the second half of the year.

“We assure the public that the government will sustain these very promising economic numbers for the remaining half of 2018 in order to provide better jobs and more comfortable lives for more Filipinos,” Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said in Palace press briefing.

Roque said the faster growth expectation by the DOF is supported by an increase in government expenditure which reached 19.

47 percent, the highest per semester since 2013.

He said the government tax collection efforts have resulted in the highest achievement of 15.23 percent for the first six months of 2018.

Roque said the exports of goods and services picked up to a double-digit growth of 13% for the second quarter compared to 6.5% in the first quarter.

“On top of these economic gains, the Philippines after an eight-year break was also successful in returning to the Samurai bond market,” he said.

The multi-tranche Samurai bond issue raised 154.2 billion yen or the equivalent of USD1.39 billion, yielding a weighted average spread of 34.7 basis points above benchmark, according to DOF.

In a recent weekly news forum, DOF Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said year’s second quarter gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 6 percent was a mere “exception that does not indicate a medium-term trend”.

Dominguez said although the inflation rate reached 5.7 percent in July, it actually eased to 0.5 percent on a month-on-month basis and expected to go down to original forecast range of 4 to 4.5 percent by the end of the year.