2009 GDP growth seen at 0.7%-1.0%

MANILA, Philippines – The economy is estimated to have expanded from 0.7 percent to one percent last year, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Augusto Santos said yesterday.

The low end of Santos’ projection is slighly below the official gross domestic product (GDP) range for 2009 of between 0.8 percent and 1.8 percent.

In the fourth quarter of last year, Santos said the economy likely expanded by 0.6 percent to 1.6 percent, boosted by Christmas spending and early election expenses.

The National Statistical Coordination Board is scheduled to release on Thursday the 2009 growth figures.

For the January to September 2009 period, economic growth hit 0.7 percent, below the government’s 2009 goal of 0.8 to 1.8 percent.

Officials said the economy had suffered severely last year due to the lingering impact of the global financial crisis and the twin effects of typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng which also battered large parts of Metro Manila and Luzon.

This year, officials expect the economy to improve with Finance Secretary Margarito Teves saying that GDP may expand by as much as four percent, along with the global economic recovery.

A four percent GDP growth is significantly higher than the 2.6 percent to 3.6 percent target set by the interagency Development Budget and Coordination Committee (DBCC) for the year.

Teves had said that a four percent growth may be achieved because the world economy is already on the steady path to recovery following the global financial turmoil which struck late 2007.

If the economy grows within the 2.6 to 3.6 percent target or possibly even four percent in 2010, this would help improve collections of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and the Bureau of Customs (BOC) which have been perennially falling short of their respective revenue targets. –Iris C. Gonzales (The Philippine Star)