Here’s to all of us laboring in the salt mines, day in and day out, who have been continuously advised that rapid growth will be our fate for much of the rest of this administration. Let’s brace ourselves in case there is a hiccup along the way. From breakneck speed, our economy will grow at a moderate pace, at least for the rest of the year. But let’s not be overly concerned. Such is the fate of most other countries in the Asia-Pacific. And, better still, we will be faring better than most countries in the world including the two fastest-growing economies in the last few years—China and India.
This is the prognosis of most economists as the world awaits the result of the ongoing battles in the global economic front based essentially on the politics of oil and tariffs recently unleashed by the oil producers and the world’s biggest economy—the United States. The confluence of events engendered by these developments has brought back fears of negative global economic growth and, of late, the return of the horrors of the Great Depression in the United States.
In its latest report, the influential Asean+3 Macroeconomic Research Office noted that economic growth within its research area—the seven Asean countries, namely, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam plus China/Hong Kong, Japan and Korea—is expected to moderate due to “continuing uncertainties in global trade and the strengthening of the US dollar.” In addition, it particularly advised that the growth in China and Japan will continue to be strong in the third quarter “amid external uncertainties from trade tensions.”
In the same report, AMRO reported that China posted a 6.7-percent growth, slower than its 6.9-percent take in the same quarter last year. In the same quarter, Japan posted a one-percent growth in the second
quarter, slower than the 1.6 percent registered last year. Uncertainties on global trade, read that, the impact of spike in oil prices and the continuing tit-for-tat on tariff of goods and services among the world’s biggest economies, will definitely affect growth in the last two quarters of the year.
Noted the macroeconomic research group in the August report: “The uncertainties over global trade outlook and the renewed dollar strength will continue to pose strong headwinds with downward pressure on asset prices and capital flows. While policy settings in the region continues to be supportive of growth, the near-term risks continued to be characterized by potential upside surprises in US wage growth/inflation triggering a faster than expected Fed rate hike. The downside risks to emerging markets, asset prices and capital flows could interact with further escalation of global trade tensions which can be mutually reinforcing.”
In plain language, AMRO is all but advising that we should all brace for a slowdown. How to react to that expected slowdown is the hurdle we should all be working on right now. If we leave the doomsayers to their own devices, the proposed measure is single minded—get Duterte and his economic initiatives out of the way. Bring in the old, tired measures of the past…and voila! We will have a brighter future ahead of us.
Just check the latest statements coming from this group. Using the impact of the last two typhoons, with losses in the billions of pesos, the continuing downward growth pressures, in and out of the country, from the second quarter, the chorus of anti-Duterte doomsayers is to decry government inaction and that a crisis is not only upon us but will be staying for good. Instead of suggesting solutions to what they are hallucinating about as a crisis, they are coming out in full force, denying each and every effort of this administration correcting the situation such as the hike in interest rates and the zeroing out of tariffs on certain basic goods, among others. These groups seem to be wishing the country even more problems rather than making suggestions to resolve these as should be expected of people of goodwill. They are having a field day being do-gooders.
That is the problem. I have serious doubts that our politics and with it the economic and business environment would ever rise up to the level of First World countries. Or at least mid-level, high income states such as Singapore. I remember in the early 70s the late Singapore founding father and long-time Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew ribbing then-President Ferdinand Marcos in one Asean Leaders meeting that the Philippines will never be able to rise up to mid-level economic status
within the foreseeable future. Too much democracy will derail its run, Lee said, or r words to that effect. How true. It’s not the system that’s at fault, I think. It’s the politics that these guys are practicing. Grabe.