Legazpi City: The Philippine economy will post a 5.7 percent growth rate in the first quarter of 2012, a hefty leap from the feeble 3.7 percent annual growth in 2011 which was less than half of the respectable 7.6-percent expansion in 2010.
Gov. Joey Salceda of Albay, an astute economist and former presidential economic adviser who now sits as national president of the chairs of all 17 Regional Development Councils in the country, said that the 2012 first quarter 5.7-percent growth will constitute President Benigno Aquino 3rd’s “real first year of delivering after 18 months of streamlining.”
He said that a confluence of both domestic and external factors contribute to the country’s favorable growth trend, which will make 2012, “the year of the dragon,” an auspicious and promising year for Filipinos.
The demand side domestic factors, Salceda added, include the rebound in public spending and the full impact of the disbursement acceleration program, with the frontloading of the 2012 capital outlay coinciding with better weather for construction activities; and the materialization of private, foreign and local investments triggered by high confidence in the new government.
He cautioned, however, that the impact of the Aquino administration’s Private-Public Partnership (PPP) program will at best be felt in the fourth quarter of the year or more likely in 2013.
The growth trend, Salceda said, will further be boosted by increased agricultural production resulting from the government’s robust focus in irrigation upgrading and development, and the benign La Nina phenomenon in the first half of the year.
These favorable growth boosters, the governor added, will further be complemented by the slight improvement in the United States economy, and hopefully the stabilization of eurozone concerns.
In retrospect, Salceda said that the feeble 3.7-percent growth in 2011“was pretty much expected.”
He pointed out that the weak growth last year resulted from many factors that were exacerbated by the series of typhoons and severe weather impact, which negated the robust remittance growth from overseas Filipinos. The government’s underspending also produced a critical review of the situation but led to the formulation of new and more responsive policies.
Salceda said that the sluggish 2011 growth was aggravated by the anemic US recovery, the peaking eurozone instability and the China slowdown.
He noted, however, that the seasonally adjusted gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 0.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011, better than the 0.8 percent of the previous quarter, while the seasonally adjusted Gross National Income (GNI) accelerated to 1.7 percent from 0.9 percent in the third quarter, “indicating that the first quarter of the year of the dragon [2012] will indeed be more fun for the Philippine economy.”
