The economy is weak because the economy is weak

IN conjunction with the World Bank's Fall Meeting this week, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) published its October update to its global economic forecast for 2023, and the outlook is not encouraging. As it pertains to the Philippine economy, all the news about the forecast was headlined with some version of "PH growth may be affected by 'global shocks,'" which closely follows the official line the government has held for quite some time: We're doing great, and if our economic growth falls short of expectations, that is caused by external factors beyond our control.

Just to put things in context, the IMF has lowered its previous global GDP growth forecast (issued in July) for 2023 from 2.9 percent to 2.7 percent; it previously forecast 3.2-percent growth for 2022. It also expects inflation to rise to 8.8 percent this year, but to fall to 6.5 percent in 2023 and 4.1 percent in 2024.