MANILA – Philippines’ low inflation and South East Asian (SEA) games-related spending are seen to boost domestic growth to a six-percent expansion this 2019.
“State spending, coupled with revived capital formation (after BSP rate cuts) and robust consumption (low inflation and SEA games), will likely be enough to get the Philippine economy past the six percent finish line as we flip the calendar to 2020,” a bank’s senior economist Nicholas Mapa said in a report Monday.
“We expect government spending to sustain the same strong pace to close out the year, which should translate to higher spending growth in both November and December given that government spending was in contraction by the end of 2018,” he added.
Data released by the Bureau of the Treasury Monday showed that government spending last October grew by 1.4 percent year-on-year, lower than the 39.1 percent last September.
In end-October 2019, government spending rose by 5.05 percent to P261.5 billion from year-ago’s P240.6 billion.
Revenues rose by 9.80 percent year-on-year to P2.358 billion while budget deficit fell by 20.51 percent to P348.3 billion.
Citing the government’s deficit cap of P438.1 billion, Mapa said “with less than two months to the close of the eventful 2019, the Philippines zeroes in on its full-year deficit target with the economy in need of an added push post the budget delay.”
The government’s growth target for this year is a range between six to seven percent. (PNA)
