ADB cuts anew 2019 PH growth forecast to 6%
Credit to Author: The Manila Times| Date: Wed, 25 Sep 2019 04:34:39 +0000
THE Asian Development Bank (ADB) has downgraded anew its 2019 Philippine economic growth forecast on the back of sluggish global growth and domestic investment.
In its updated Asian Development Outlook report, the ADB said it was expecting the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) to grow by 6 percent this year from the projected 6.2 percent.
During the Manila-based multilateral lender’s press briefing in its headquarters in Mandaluyong City, ADB Country Director Kelly Bird attributed the lower projection to the slowdown in domestic investment in the first half of the year, primarily caused by the delayed passage of the 2019 national budget.
“The plateauing of domestic investment was caused mainly by contraction in public spending on infrastructure in the first half and relatively high interest rates,” the ADB stated in its report.
“The delayed passage of the 2019 national budget and a ban on public infrastructure spending in the run-up to midterm elections in May 2019 held back public infrastructure,” it added.
The economic growth projection for 2020 was slashed at 6.2 percent from 6.4 percent.
The ADB also sees inflation being pulled down by improved domestic rice supplies, largely on improved domestic supplies after the lifting of quantitative rice import restrictions in February this year.
The Philippine inflation forecasts were also lowered to 2.6 percent from 3 percent for 2019, and to 3 percent from 3.5 percent in 2020.
The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) had reported that inflation dropped to 5.5 percent in the second quarter of 2019, the lowest outturn since the first quarter of 2015, as the budget impasse and election spending ban affected government spending. JORDEENE B. LAGARE