MANILA – The head of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said the economy will be picking up beginning in the second quarter of the year if the Philippines can avoid another surge in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases that may be triggered by the highly transmissible Delta variant.
“We expect the positive growth to take place and to start this second quarter and into the third and fourth quarter,” Trade secretary Ramon Lopez told CNN Philippines’ The Exchange on Friday.
The Cabinet official cited the milder economic decline of 4.2 percent observed for the period of January to March, compared to the 8.3 percent slump in the fourth quarter of 2020.
Lopez cited among the improvements in economic indicators since then are in foreign direct investments – specifically a three-digit growth in April – and the country’s manufacturing activity which returned to expansionary territory this June after two months of decline.
However, Lopez emphasized it is “very critical” that the country prevents another surge in COVID-19 infections, particularly one caused by the Delta variant which ravaged India and more recently Indonesia, for the economy to bounce back.
“This threat of the Delta variant, hindi sana mangyari dito sa Pilipinas to the extent ng mga nangyari sa mga katabing bansa natin,” he said. “Importante po ‘yun so that the kind of recovery we’re seeing now will continue ‘til the end of the year and into the following years.”
However, ING Bank senior economist Nicholas Mapa stated that the economy might keep on struggling for the rest of the year – with a return to pre-pandemic growth levels only possible by end-2022.
“The double-digit growth that he’s expecting in the second quarter, if you think about it, it comes on the back of last year’s -16.9 percent GDP,” he said about Finance secretary Carlos Dominguez’s statement earlier this week. “That’s the mirror image of that really bad performance we have last year.”
Dominguez said on Monday the expected recovery this quarter is being driven by a faster vaccine rollout and implementation of economic recovery measures.
The economic team targets a growth of six to seven percent for the Philippine economy this year.(CNN)
