AMRO: PH growth still at 6.3% in 2019, 6.5% in 2020
Credit to Author: ANNA LEAH E. GONZALES| Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2019 16:29:02 +0000
THE Asean+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO) on Tuesday kept its Philippine economic growth forecasts for this year and next despite seeing anemic factory and export output in the region.
In the July update of its Asean+3 Regional Economic Outlook, AMRO maintained its gross domestic product (GDP) growth projection for the country at 6.3 percent for 2019 and 6.5 percent for 2020, after downgrading these in its June report from 6.4 percent and 6.6 percent, respectively.
It also forecast economic growth in East and Southeast Asia to hit 4.9 percent for both years.
Asean+3 groups the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations — Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam — China, Japan and South Korea.
The report noted, however, that manufacturing and export outturns in some countries in the region continued to be weak.
“The outlook for the manufacturing sector in the Asean+3 region, particularly the Plus 3 economies, is lackluster, underpinned by uncertainties surrounding global trade,” it said.
“The slowdown in output and the dip in new orders were reflected in a contraction in China’s headline PMI (purchasing managers’ index) (49.4), amid continuing uncertainties over the outcome of the resumed US-China trade negotiation[s after] the G20 (Group of 20) meeting in Osaka,” it added.
The PMI is a composite index that represents the weighted average of new orders, output, employment, suppliers’ delivery time and stocks. Readings above 50 signal an expansion; below that, a contraction.
AMRO said Japan’s PMI deteriorated for the second consecutive month to 49.3, noting that the latest decline in new export orders was the sharpest in the last three years.
“Similarly for [South] Korea, [its] PMI, particularly the export orders sub-index, continued to contract,” it added.
AMRO’s projections are the latest reported in the last few days. Last Friday, the interagency Development Budget Coordination Committee retained its GDP growth outlook for the country at between 6 percent and 7 percent for this year and 6.5 and 7.5 percent for 2020.
The day before, the Asian Development Bank revised downward its 2019 forecast to 6.2 percent from 6.4 percent, but kept its 2020 projection at 6.4 percent.
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