Gov’t hopeful on faster economic growth

Achieving herd immunity from COVID-19 through mass vaccination will allow faster economic recovery toward the end of 2021, President Duterte’s chief economic manager said Monday.

In an interview with CNBC, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said the Philippine government planned to inoculate 63 percent of its population, or about 70 million Filipinos aged 18 and above.

Minors below 18 years old numbered about 40 million, but medical experts did not recommend vaccinating them yet against the deadly coronavirus, Dominguez said.

With the initial vaccine shipments arriving in February, Dominguez said herd immunity would likely be achieved by the end of this year once the majority of the population gets vaccinated.

Dominguez said the P82.5 billion in funds set aside by the national government for vaccine procurement and distribution would cover doses for 57-60 million Filipinos, while the remaining 10-13 million would be covered by local governments and the private sector.

The finance chief said they expected government tax and non-tax revenues to revert to full potential and hit targets by the fourth quarter of this year even as he acknowledged that the pandemic-induced recession would inflict permanent scars on the economy.

Dominguez said it helped that the Duterte administration earlier on shored up revenues through tax reform such that the country kept its investment-grade credit rating despite the pandemic while also ramping up big-ticket infrastructure investments under the ambitious “Build, Build, Build” program.

It also helped that Filipinos living and working overseas increased their remittances to their families in the Philippines such that these cash inflows only incurred a minimal decline and boosted the country’s dollar reserves to a record-high as of end-2020, Dominguez said.

Dominguez also expressed optimism about the new Biden administration in the United States, which said it would “reengage with the world,” hence possibly easing trade tensions with China.

“We believe that trade is absolutely essential to improving the livelihoods and standards of living of everybody on this planet,” Dominguez said.

He said relations with China—the Philippines’ biggest trade partner—had been steady despite a territorial dispute in the West Philippine Sea.

“Like most neighbors, we will have some disputes, but we have also a lot of commonalities between the Philippines and China… and we have decided that we will do business as usual while continuing to discuss and insist on our positions with regards to the West Philippine Sea issues,” he said. —BEN O
DE VERA