MANILA, Philippines–The research arm of debt watcher Moody’s was more optimistic about the Philippines’ second-quarter economic growth, which it projected at 6.2 percent year-on-year.
“There’s some downside risk associated with this forecast, given the ongoing strength in imports against a backdrop of weak exports. The strength is forecast to be primarily coming from the consumption and investment segments of the economy, helping to offset weakness in the external sector,” Katrina Ell, assistant director and economist for Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines at Moody’s Analytics, told the Inquirer in an e-mail Monday.
The government will report the second-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) performance on Thursday (Aug. 8).
Economists polled by the Inquirer last week expect GDP growth during the April to June period to be faster than the first quarter’s four-year low of 5.6 percent.
However, most of these economists also see second-quarter GDP expansion remaining below 6 percent, mainly due to underspending on public goods and services that persisted during the first half.
As of end-June, the government’s expenditures amounted P1.59 trillion, down 0.83 percent from P1.604 trillion a year ago “mainly because the government operated under a reenacted budget during the first four months of 2019,” the Bureau of the Treasury earlier said.
National Treasurer Rosalia V. de Leon recently said that actual first-half disbursements were P184-billion short of the P1.8-trillion program for the six-month period.
“That’s P1 billion a day” of underspending, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III noted.
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