The Development Budget and Coordination Committee (DBCC) is studying revisions in its macroeconomic assumptions for 2024 and beyond, following the government’s missed economic target in 2023.
“We’re discussing right now, because we have to come out with more realistic targets. Everybody is complaining that we missed our targets in 2023 … Don’t you think we need some adjustments there? I think we need to,” Finance Secretary Ralph Recto said when asked If the DBCC would revise its economic assumptions.
“Something more realistic, but still high for 2024 and beyond,” he said.
The economic managers, in December 2023, narrowed growth target for 2024 to between 6.5 percent and 7.5 percent from the previous range of 6.5 percent to 8 percent, while retaining the 6.5 to 8.0 percent growth assumption for 2025 to 2028.
The DBCC maintained its 2023 growth target at 6 percent to 7 percent, but the gross domestic product expanded by only 5.6 percent last year.
State-run Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) expects the GDP to grow 5.5 percent to 6 percent in 2024, while the International Monetary Fund in its January 2024 World Economic Outlook (WEO) update revised its 2024 GDP growth forecast for the Philippines to 6 percent from its 5.9-percent estimate in October.
BMI, a Fitch Solutions company and the Asian Development Bank, projected that the GDP growth would accelerate to 6.2 percent in 2024.