NEDA sees RP recovery next year

MANILA, Philippines – The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) expects the economy to recover next year now that most of the major economies, including the United States have started registering positive growth again.

Acting Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Augusto Santos said after the Cabinet meeting in Bohol yesterday, that Filipinos in general should expect a bright Christmas even after several months of suffering through a sluggish economy and the devastation brought about by four successive typhoons.

Santos noted that the exports sector has started to pick up already with the National Statistics Office (NSO) reporting a 4.6-percent growth in shipments to $3.63 billion in September this year from $3.472 billion a month ago.

While exports were still down by 18.3 percent from $4.445 billion in September last year, the latest contraction was an improvement from the 21-percent decline recorded in August.

Philippine exports have started posting negative growth since October last year.

For the first nine months of the year, the Philippines‘ export receipts declined by 29 percent to $27.639 billion.

Accounting for about two thirds of the country’s produce sold abroad, electronic products earnings slipped 13.2 percent to $2.25 billion.

The US remained the country’s largest market, comprising 17.8 percent of the total exports. Japan was the second-largest market with a 16.8-percent share. Other top markets were Hong Kong, Netherlands, Germany, China, South Korea , Thailand , and Taiwan , respectively.

Santos said that a number of the companies that laid off their workers at the height of the global financial crisis, have started rehiring, a sign that the exports sector has started to recover.

“I think the drop in exports this year may not be that bad and we will have positive growth in exports next year,” Santos said.

One of the Philippines’ biggest markets, the US, has also reported positive growth in the third quarter at around 3.6 percent, according to Santos.

This is an indication that the US    is out of recession and as such, the rest of the world economies are expected to post their own gains.

“That’s good news especially this coming Christmas,” Santos said.

The NEDA has been optimistic about the Philippine economy even during the height of the financial crisis and with the latest developments in the US economy, the confidence level has gone up even higher.

Santos said that there is no way the Philippine economy will go into a recession anymore this year as predicted by some analysts early this year.

“The economic news is looking good so this year, 2009, we will not go into recession and definitely, there is recovery next year, which is just around the corner because it’s December already next month,” Santos said.

The government is looking at a 2.6 to 3.6 percent growth next year, up from this year’s 0.8 to 1.8 percent.

Last September, President Arroyo directed her economic managers to study the possibility of adjusting upwards next year’s growth target to four percent because of the positive developments domestically and around the world.

However, the directive of the President came before the storms that battered most of Luzon, resulting in billions worth of damage to agriculture and infrastructure. –Marvin Sy and Rica Delfinado (The Philippine Star)