Economic growth likely hit high end of ’12 target—official
By Riza T. Olchondra
Philippine Daily Inquirer
The Philippine economy likely hit the high
end of its growth rate target in 2012 and would maintain a “high growth” in
2013, Economic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said in an interview Monday
as the stock market rallied past the 6,000 mark.
Hitting the 5- to 6-percent growth target
for 2012 “is no big deal,” Balisacan said, saying the economy was likely to have
expanded by about 6.5 percent last year.
For the fourth quarter of 2012, he said
the expansion of the gross domestic product (GDP) would definitely be higher
than 4.5 percent, which was the minimum required for the Philippines to hit the
higher end of the target for 2012.
Growth likely hit 6 percent in the last
quarter alone, said Cid L. Terosa, economist at the University of Asia and the
Pacific. At that level, full-year growth could hit 6.5 to 7 percent.
Former Budget Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno
of the UP School of Economics had a slightly more conservative estimate of about
4.5 percent.
“I agree with Neda officials that this
growth rate is attainable. In fact, I forecast that growth in the fourth quarter
will be within the range of 4.5 percent to 5.3 percent.
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