{"id":179913,"date":"2018-09-03T23:21:45","date_gmt":"2018-09-04T03:21:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=179913"},"modified":"2018-09-03T23:21:45","modified_gmt":"2018-09-04T03:21:45","slug":"ph-grow-6-8-2018-dominguez-tells-fitch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/09\/03\/ph-grow-6-8-2018-dominguez-tells-fitch\/","title":{"rendered":"PH to grow about 6.8% in 2018, Dominguez tells Fitch"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
FILE: Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III at the 51st Asian Development Bank Annual Meeting on May 25, 2018 (Photo<\/a>: Department of Finance\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0— The Philippine economy’s growth is expected to remain strong at \u201cclose to 6.8 percent\u201d this 2018 and will be driven by the increased spending on infrastructure, the country’s finance chief said in a recent Fitch Ratings interview in Manila.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn think we will still be close to 6.8 percent this year. I think the momentum on our \u201cBuild, Build, Build\u201d is strong and we are really moving quite well in our infrastructure program,\u201d Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III elaborated.<\/p>\n

This growth outlook is higher than the 6.7 percent output of the domestic economy, as measured by gross domestic product (GPD), in 2017.<\/p>\n

In the second quarter this year, the economy registered a growth of six percent, slower than quarter-ago\u2019s 6.6 percent on account of minute expansion of the agriculture sector and high inflation rate.<\/p>\n

Agriculture grew by 0.2 percent from April to June this year while inflation has been posting multiyear highs, with the second quarter average at 4.8 percent, higher than the two to four percent target band until 2020.<\/p>\n

Last July, inflation hit 5.7 percent from month-ago\u2019s 5.2 percent, bringing the seven-month average to 4.5 percent.<\/p>\n

Amid the slower growth in the second quarter this year, Dominguez remains optimistic the domestic economy can achieve faster output in the coming months.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe that we\u2019re not really in danger of overheating at the moment. We still have long way to go,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, I think we\u2019re still within safe borders,\u201d he said, citing big expectations from the impact of the government\u2019s massive infrastructure program.<\/p>\n

Under the Duterte administration\u2019s infrastructure program, the government will invest at least PHP1 trillion annually, with the investment by 2022 or by the end of the current government\u2019s target, targeted at least PHP8 trillion.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are looking forward to continuing our \u201cBuild, Build, Build\u201d program. Basically we are just catching up with our neighbors on infrastructure and that is going pretty well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Another plus for the Philippine economy is the passage of the first tax reform package, which boosted government revenues \u201cquite significantly\u201d, Dominguez said.<\/p>\n

The Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Act was signed into law in December 2017. It cut workers\u2019 income tax rates but increased excise tax on fuel products and introduced excise tax on vehicles and sugar-sweetened beverages.<\/p>\n

Dominguez said the government\u2019s infrastructure program further got a boost from official development assistance (ODA) loans from China (USD9 billion), Japan (USD9 billion) and South Korea (USD1 billion).<\/p>\n

With external headwinds such as interest rate hikes still strong, Dominguez said the Philippines needs to adjust to these.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we will cope with it as best we can,\u201d he said, noting that the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has increased its own key rates by 100 basis points so far this year.<\/p>\n

The Finance chief, however, pointed out that the Philippines is not a big trading nation and thus impact of the slowdown of global trade would be limited.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we have, as I\u2019ve said, we are well funded to continuously support the economy via the \u201cBuild, Build, Build\u201d program,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0— The Philippine economy’s growth is expected to remain strong at \u201cclose to 6.8 percent\u201d this 2018 and will be …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":179914,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-179913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","mauthors-joann-villanueva","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}