Albay Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda said the Philippines’ gross domestic product could hit 9 percent in three years, supported by President Rodrigo Duterte’s policy strengths and infrastructure spending.
Salceda, a known economist, said such GDP growth could be attained under Duterte’s massive spending program, ushering in a “golden age” of infrastructure in the country.
Quoting economic forecast models developed by a group of econometricians, the lawmaker said by 2019, the GDP could hit 9 percent with “infrastructure spending [representing] from 5 percent to 6 percent of GDP, funded by new taxes and tax efficiencies.”
Salceda, vice chair of the House committee on economic affairs, said the 7.1-percent GDP growth attained by the country in the third quarter this year”•which made the Philippines the fastest growing economy in Asia”•could further accelerate in the fourth quarter and to about 7.5 percent in 2017.
The Philippine Statistics Authority reported that the Philippines’ 7.1-percent third-quarter growth bested China’s 6.7 percent, Vietnam’s 6.4 percent, Indonesia’s 5 percent and Malaysia’s 4.3 percent. The Philippines now needs to post a 6.9-percent growth in the fourth quarter to hit the top end of its 6-percent to 7 percent target for 2016.
Salceda said the growth in the third quarter 2016, which is also the first quarter of the Duterte regime, was itself propelled by infrastructure spending, backed up partly by agri-recovery and remittances from overseas Filipino workers.
He said the impressive growth was also aided on the side by the government peace initiatives and fiscal reforms, the same factors seen to further boost the economy in the next three years.
Investments in construction and infrastructures became the biggest source of growth in the country and are now “higher than consumption,” which Salceda said he “can’t remember seeing one in past history.”
Salceda said massive infrastructure development would generate more jobs, create strong middle class families, promote inclusive growth and reduce the country’s marginalized sector.
The lawmaker also cited the “dividends of peace on the streets and peace with the left and MILF whose indefinite ceasefire modes should boost business activities and investments in greenfield areas, and thus further lift the trajectory of growth with the GDP hitting 7.5 percent in 2017.”