The government’s economic managers on Tuesday projected a 6-percent gross domestic product growth in the second quarter of 2024, driven by strong consumer spending.
“I hope it’s 6 percent. It’s most likely,” Finance Secretary Ralph Recto told reporters at the sidelines of the post-State of the Nation Address forum.
“Still, number one will be consumption because that’s the biggest part. I mean, household consumption is number one, and that’s supported by what we see on bank lending and credit cards, in spite of high interest rates and government consumption,” Recto said.
Recto, who is also a member of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ (BSP) Monetary Board, said the government is on track to reducing interest rates this year, which is “the most important thing that will support our growth,” he added.
The MB earlier maintained the overnight borrowing rate at 6.50 percent and the overnight deposit and lending facilities at 6.0 percent and 7.0 percent, respectively.
National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Secretary Arsenio Balisacan also forecast a 6-percent expansion in the second quarter, following the 5.7-percent growth in the first quarter.
“It’s probably close to at least the lower end of the target,” he said. The government targets a 6 percent to 7 percent GDP growth for 2024.
Meanwhile, Recto said utilizing the unused and idle funds held by government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs) such as PhilHealth and Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. would help the economy grow by “more or less 0.8 percent.”
“This means that we can easily achieve our 6 percent to 6.5 percent growth rate this year,” he said.
Recto said the unused money from GOCCs would create more than 600,000 jobs if used for government social and infrastructure projects. He said that the unused funds from PhilHealth and PDIC amounted to roughly P200 billion.
Recto, encouraged by lower 2023 poverty incidence, vowed to ramp up initiatives to sustain rapid economic growth and further develop human capital.
He said lower and better-than-expected poverty incidence of 15.5 percent in 2023 was very encouraging.
“These figures, which are even lower than our 2023 targets, demonstrate that our strategies are working and that we are on track to achieve a single-digit poverty incidence of 9 percent by the end of the President’s term in 2028. In fact, if we continue to ramp up investments and create more jobs, we might reach this goal even sooner,” he said.
The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA)’s Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES) showed that the poverty incidence among Filipino individuals dropped to 15.5 percent in 2023 from 18.1 percent in 2021, and the pre-pandemic rate of 16.7 percent in 2018.
This means that 2.45 million Filipinos were lifted out of poverty from 2021 to 2023.
The figure was also lower than the government’s development target for poverty incidence in 2023, which was set between 16.0 percent and 16.4 percent.
Meanwhile, poverty incidence among families dropped to 10.9 percent in 2023 from 13.2 percent in 2021, liberating around 500,000 families from poverty. This was also lower than the pre-pandemic rate of 12.1 percent in 2018.
The country’s average per capita income rose 17.9 percent between 2021 and 2023, surpassing the 3.8-percent increase seen from 2018 to 2021.
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