Economy

SEVERAL Southeast Asian economies enjoyed as much as a five-fold increase in foreign direct investments (FDI) last year while the Philippines was recording a decline, United Nations data released on Monday showed.

The economy is likely to grow 4.6 percent this year far lower than the government projected seven percent gross domestic product (GDP) expansion, according to a United Nations (UN) report.

Here are some aspects to consider in understanding what happens to the Philippine economy this year. The first is to analyze how sound are the “macroeconomic fundamentals.” This means keeping the fiscal, monetary and the investment fronts vibrant but stable. They should facilitate an economy that is operating without crises or imbalances.

MANILA, Philippines – The Aquino administration is still hopeful that economic growth would be within the seven percent to eight percent growth projected for 2011.

PHILIPPINE economic growth will likely slow to 4.6% this year before picking up to 5.1% in 2012 as a global deceleration continues, the United Nations yesterday said.

PHILIPPINE economic managers expect remittances and the public-private partnership (PPP) initiative to help prop up the economy this year. Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Cayetano Paderanga said rising prices of food, fuel and transportation services are unlikely to dampen consumer spending.

MANILA, Philippines –  German banking giant Deutsche Bank AG said it expects the Philippine economy to grow five percent this year, slowing down from the estimated 6.5 to 7 percent growth in 2010.

CEBU CITY, Philippines – The Philippines incurs an average of P6.6 billion in economic losses every year due to typhoons alone because of inadequate protective measures and policies against natural disasters, a UN study revealed yesterday.

The Philippine economy will grow at a moderate pace this year on the back of continued remittance-supported household spending and further government support for infrastructure development, a World Bank report showed Thursday.

MANILA, Philippines – The country is still considered “mostly unfree” in a global index that measures commitment to free enterprise and capitalist system.

INTERNATIONAL TRQDE UNION CONFEDERATION ITUC Online Brussels/Washington 13 January 2011 (ITUC OnLine): The international trade union movement has criticised today’s World Bank report on Global Economic Prospects  (GEP) http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTDEC/EXTDECPROSPECTS/GEPEXT/0,,contentMDK:22804940~pagePK:51087946~piPK:51087916~theSitePK:538110,00.html  for advocating fiscal austerity in the face of high unemployment.  However, the report’s call for “the re-regulation of the financial sector” is welcome.

THE WORLD BANK has again revised its 2010 growth estimate for the Philippines, raising it to 6.8% from the 6.2% outlook issued last October.

MANILA, Philippines – The country is still considered “mostly unfree” in a global index that measures commitment to free enterprise and capitalist system.

A question asked at the beginning of any year concerns what to expect about the economy. Some of the answers given are often based on guesses. There are however intelligent answers as there are uninformed.

Why did succeeding Cabinet members in charge of the Philippine economy—after the Marcos regime—let Philippine industrialization shrink to its present state of almost nothingness? Why did they abandon our steel industry, which any freshman-level economics or engineering student knows, is the lifeblood of industrialization?

MANILA, Philippines—In the power sector, non-oil sources of energy will account for 70 percent or more of power generation, especially geothermal, natural gas, coal, biomass, hydro, wind, and solar.

(This blog was originally published on The Asia Foundation’s blog, In Asia. Reposted with permission.) New Year in the Philippines comes in literally with a bang – with vigorous fireworks (derived from Chinese traditions) reaching a crescendo at midnight. While each year the media dutifully record the toll of injuries, Filipinos love the boisterous noise…

MANILA, Philippines –  New York-based Moody’s Investors Service upgraded yesterday the outlook on the Philippines’ foreign and local-currency bond ratings from “stable” to “positive,” a day after the government sold $1.25 billion worth of peso-denominated global bonds.

MANILA, Philippines – Information Technology (IT) and business process outsourcing (BPO) industries such as call centers, as well as the tourism sector, are seen, in a projection by the National Economic and Development Authority, as continuing to offer bright financial prospects to the national economy in the year 2011, especially in job generation and in…

MANILA, Philippines – The heads of foreign diplomatic missions in the Philippines and international financial institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) see bright prospects for the country in 2011.

THE National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) expects the economy to have slowed down in the third quarter of the year. Socioeconomic Planning Secretary and NEDA Director-General Cayetano Paderanga told reporters that the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) may have grown near six percent in the third quarter.

MANILA, Philippines – To say that 2010 was a difficult year for the Philippine telecommunications industry is an understatement. The industry’s dynamics have changed dramatically. While consumers rejoice about the barrage of unlimited and bucket priced offerings that brought down the costs of text messaging and mobile voice calls, the revenues of telecommunications companies suffered.

Our economic planners have put up a fighting target of 8 percent GDP growth for 2011. That contrasts sharply with earlier forecasts putting growth next year below the growth rate registered for this year.

MANILA, Philippines – The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) was surprised with the strong capital inflows that continue to flood emerging market economies particularly the Philippines but is ready with its enhanced toolkit to prevent the build up of inflation pressures.

MANILA, Philippines -The year 2010 emerged as another difficult and challenging year for monetary authorities but the Philippines emerged victorious from the debt crisis that hit Europe after surviving the impact of the global financial crisis that started in the US just two years ago.

MANILA, Philippines – The Aquino administration expects private consumption to continue driving growth for 2011 on the back of the continued dollar inflows from overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).

Public-private partnership or PPP is again the catch phrase in the Philippines as a formula for carrying out large infrastructure projects, an engine for economic growth.

A senior official of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) said that the Philippines is likely to exceed its growth target this year, but warned of a slowdown next year because of a “quite fragile” global economic recovery.

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines will likely surpass its 2010 economic growth target of five to six percent because of the strong gross domestic product performance in the first half of the year, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Cayetano Paderanga Jr. said yesterday.

Majority of Filipinos are hopeful of good things to come next year, a recent survey conducted by a market research firm showed. According to the results of Synovate’s Asiabus October 2010 survey, 51 percent of respondents “foresee their personal financial situation to be better” in the next 12 months, while 39 percent said they expect…