The government’s economic managers are visiting the United States this week to hold an economic briefing for investors at the sidelines of the World Bank-International Monetary Fund Spring Meetings in Washington D.C.
Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno will lead the economic team in trying to attract US-based multinational firms to invest in the Philippines which is one of the fastest-growing economies in the region.
Diokno said in a message over the weekend that large US-based companies were expected to attend the Philippine economic briefing. Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Felipe Medalla, Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman and National Economic and Development Authority Secretary Arsenio Balisacan are also joining the US trip.
“President Marcos Jr.’s economic team will be in the US this week to brief some 180 senior executives and representatives of large US-based businesses [such as Boeing, Carroll, GeoX, FedEx, Visa and Ford], industry associations and financial communities,” Diokno said.
“The message is one of optimism: how the Philippines has transformed itself into one of the fastest-growing economies in the fastest-growing region in the world. Amid the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing global uncertainties, the Philippine government did not sit idly by and wait for the virus to fade,” Diokno said.
He said the government adopted new laws to open up the economy to foreign investors and make the economy vibrant and competitive.
Diokno underscored the country’s strengths such as robust economic growth, improving jobs market, strong external position, among others.
The country’s gross domestic product expanded by a 46-year high of 7.6 percent in 2022, exceeding the growth target of 6.5 percent to 7.5 percent set by the Development Budget Coordination Committee.
The 2022 growth also exceeded the median forecast of local private sector analysts (7.5 percent) and economic projections by the IMF ( 6.5 percent), the World Bank (7.2 percent), ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (7.3 percent) and the Asian Development Bank (7.4 percent).
Growth was broad-based, with all sectors growing despite the increase in world and domestic commodity prices. Services grew by 9.2 percent, industry by 6.7 percent and agriculture by 0.5 percent.
The growth drivers on the demand side were household consumption, government spending, investment and net export.
Household consumption is expected to grow significantly because of the better jobs market, direct measures to ease price pressures, lower income tax rates due to TRAIN Law, continued growth in overseas Filipino remittances, and targeted interventions to preserve purchasing power.
Government spending is expected to pick up with the early approval and timely implementation of the 2023 national budget.
Infrastructure programs are expected to accelerate with the support of public-private partnership (PPP) mechanism; implementation of investment inducing reforms such as amendments to the Public Service Act, Foreign Investment Act, Retail Trade Liberalization Act and the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises (CREATE); wider financial inclusion; greater adoption of e-commerce; more investments into modernization and agri-business.
The unemployment rate in January 2023 fell to 4.8 percent, sharply lower than the 6.4 percent rate in January 2022 and the pre-pandemic 5.3 percent in January 2020.