MANILA – The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Wednesday downgraded its economic outlook for the Philippines this year, citing the slow recovery from the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic.
The IMF now expects the economy to grow by 5.4 percent this year, slower than its earlier announced economic growth forecast of 6.9 percent in its World Economic Outlook in April.
Following the conclusion of the Article IV Mission this year, Mission Chief Thomas Helbling said the latest outlook was weighed down by the slow recovery.
“The reason for this is we see a bit of slowing in the recovery in the first half of 2021 before pickup in the second half of this year,” he told reporters at a virtual briefing.
The Philippine economy contracted by 16.9 percent in the second quarter of 2020, its worst quarterly performance based on available data since 1981.
In the second quarter this year, the National Capital Region Plus bubble was under the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) from March 29 to April 11 due to a surge in cases.
This was then eased to a modified ECQ (MECQ) from April 12 to May 14, and the general community quarantine (GCQ) from May 15 to June 30.
“The slowing in recovery in the first half is mostly due to the second wave of the pandemic which peaked in April and which necessitated some quarantine measures and had also weighed on economy,” Helbling said.
“But now hopefully the second wave should be on the way out. There is impetus from a strong global economy,” he elaborated.
For next year, the IMF upgraded its economic growth forecast to seven percent versus its earlier outlook of 6.5 percent.(GMA News)
