Economy

Nine out of 10 or 92 percent of Filipinos look forward to the New Year with hope rather than fear, a survey by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) showed.

Finance Secretary Margarito Teves described the year 2008 as “extremely stressful and difficult.” Teves has more than enough reasons to describe the year as such.

The government will push state agencies to spend more on various infrastructure projects as part of efforts to pump-prime the economy amid a global financial turmoil, a Cabinet official said.

by Cielito Habito from Philippine Daily Inquirer MANILA, Philippines – Ever notice how our economy has been behaving strangely lately? The latest strange (but welcome) behavior is how job generation based on the last two quarterly Labor Force Surveys (July and October 2008) appeared healthy even in the face of the world economic slowdown that…

Filipinos disagree with the view that the Philippines is a hopeless country and 54 percent would not migrate to other nations even if given the opportunity, a recent Pulse Asia survey showed.

“It is wrong to say that an economic storm is coming,” University of the Philippines economics professor Benjamin Diok-no said at the Kapihan sa Sulo media forum Saturday. “The truth is that the storm is already here.”

The government is looking at helping three major sectors next year to help boost the domestic economy, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ralph Recto said during the weekend.

Consumer confidence remains negative for the fourth quarter of the year and the first quarter of 2009, but some improvement was noted as global oil prices continued to decline.

HONG KONG: Economic growth in developing Asia will slow to 5.8 percent in 2009, down from a likely 6.9 percent this year and 9 percent in 2007, as the impact of the global financial crisis spreads to emerging markets, says a new report from the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

AMERICA’S cold is putting a damper on what the World Bank calls “the strongest pace of economic expansion in three decades” in the Philippines.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has downscaled its growth outlook for the Philippines from six percent this year to 4.5 percent and from 6.2 percent in 2009 to just 3.5 percent, citing weak exports and direct foreign investment outflows and slower private consumption.

The government rejected yesterday the World Bank’s economic growth projections for the Philippines this year and for 2009, saying that the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) is still likely to expand within the 4.1 percent to 4.8 percent projection for 2008 despite the global financial turmoil.

London-based HSBC, one of the biggest financial institutions in the world, expects gross domestic product (GDP) in the Philippines to grow between three and four percent next year.

The peso should be allowed to depreciate to about P55 to the dollar to boost local consumer spending and to improve the country’s export competitiveness, an economist said at an exporters’ forum on Thursday.

The Economist’s arm: Economic drivers weak   The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) said the Philippines’ economic growth is expected to slow sharply in 2009 because of the deepening global financial crisis. EIU is “the world’s foremost provider of country, industry and management analysis.”

Jojo Robles had a list last week, so here’s mine to reinforce and add to it. It’s a list for the President (and Congress, if miracles can indeed happen) for 2008. Or, frankly, for anyone else who’ll listen and maybe this time do something about it. After all, we’ve all been raising these same points…

THE Philippines runs the risk of losing jobs to low-wage countries because of a strong peso, according to an economist from the University of Asia and the Pacific (UA&P).

“The Philippines shall transform into a vibrant services-oriented economy driven by the enlargement of a well-educated broad middle class.” This is the supposed Arroyonomics vision verbalized by Joey Salceda some months ago. Joey couldn’t have been clearer in declaring manufacturing all but marginal in his game plan, as the country focuses on a services sector…

CEBU CITY—Sustainable fiscal reforms, regulatory capture and low investment rates were among the issues and concerns raised during Thursday’s opening plenary for the fourth Philippine Development Forum (PDF) held in this city.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) warned yesterday that there was virtually no chance for the Philippines to achieve dramatically higher economic growth in the short-term.