The World Bank maintains a two-year growth forecast for GDP at 6.7%

Despite external shocks, the World Bank is maintaining its growth forecast for the Philippines of 6.7 percent for this year and next due to strong public spending, particularly in infrastructure.

The Washington-based multilateral lender said it was maintaining its growth forecast for gross domestic product (GDP) for the Philippines for 2018 and 2019 "despite increasing global uncertainty."

However, its forecasts were below the target range of 7-8. The Philippine economy grew 6.7% last year, one of the fastest growing economies in the world. 39; Asia.

While keeping the projections of GDP growth, the World Bank said that data, the composition of expected growth was revised "compared to estimates made last April.

" Given recent fiscal trends , growth in public consumption has been revised upwards, Private consumption growth is expected to increase by 5.9% in 2018 and by 6.2% in 2019. Investment growth has been slightly improved thanks to the growth of private consumption. 39 increase in public capital expenditure, including the increase in infrastructure spending. The World Bank has not mentioned its updated forecasts of growth in public consumption and gross fixed capital investment, but last April's projections were 8.9% and 11.8% respectively.

The latest data from the Treasury Office showed that public expenditure on public goods and services from January to May jumped by 25% to P1,331 billion compared to P1,060 billion in the same period last year. last year.

For five months, public spending on infrastructure and other capital expenditures rose 42.4 percent to 280.8 billion yuan, up from 197.2 billion a year earlier (19659005). it is expected that real GDP growth will increase by the end of 2018 and in the first half of 2019 with higher election-related public spending, "said the World Bank, referring to the mid-term elections of the Next year

. "The Philippines will be able to reach its 6.5-7.5 per cent growth target in the medium term," said Birgit Hansl, chief economist of the World Bank for the Philippines

. Hansl added:

The latest data from Bangko Sentral n Pilipinas showed that foreign direct investment generating employment during the period from January to April recorded net inflows of $ 3.2 billion. 52.3% of the total investment pledges of foreign and Philippine companies to 185 billion in the first quarter compared to the same period last year.There is 21.5 billion dollars there is a year, l The most recent data from the Statistical Authority of the Philippines have shown.

Local investors accounted for 170.8 billion pesos, or 92.3 percent of the quarterly approvals of seven investment promotion agencies from January to March. foreign investor commitments fell 37.9 percent year-on-year to 14.2 billion in the first three months, the lowest quarterly commitment since 2010.

The World Bank also stated that "exports , a growth engine for the Philippines The most recent EPS data shows that merchandise exports at the end of May fell to $ 26.9 billion from $ 28.3 billion in the previous year. [previous year]

months, the Cabinet-level Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) reduced the 2018 merchandise export growth target to 9% from 10% previously.

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