MANILA – The government said it will continue to focus on raising farm productivity and rural incomes, in efforts to avoid inflationary problems noted earlier this year.
According to Finance secretary Carlos Dominguez III, the administration will focus on agriculture for the rest of the term of the current administration.
“We will focus on agriculture in the coming years,” Dominguez said in an emailed statement.
“We know that the major reason for the inflation this year has been the logistics problems we have had in agriculture as well as production problems,” he added.
Earlier this year, inflation rose to 6.7 percent, the fastest rate recorded since inflation clocked in at 7.2 percent in February 2009.
Aside from driving inflation, the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) earlier said the Philippines loses as much as P17 billion yearly in agriculture due to environmental hazards aggravated by climate change. (GMA News)
