Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Benjamin Diokno said Wednesday he is confident about better gross domestic product data in the fourth quarter, compared to the 11.5-percent decline in the third quarter, as more economic activities ensued following the easing of COVID-19 restrictions.
Diokno said in an online briefing during the Kapihansa Manila Bay forum that households and other sectors of the economy were beginning to recover from the crisis.
“As we open the economy, then people can move and do business… The slower pace of GDP contraction is expected to continue in the fourth quarter of 2020,” he said, although he did not give any specific projection.
He said improvements in mobility indicators indicated that firms and households were beginning to adjust to the post-pandemic operating environment. This, he said, could support resurgence in economic activities in the near term.
Citing mobility changes as monitored by Google for the entire country as of Dec. 29, 2020, Diokno said visits to places such as grocery, pharmacies and parks approached their pre-COVID levels. Visits to retail and recreation also continued to show improvement, he said.
Meanwhile, mobility in transit stations was still flat given that transport options remained limited.
After exhibiting 84 consecutive quarters of growth, real GDP declined by 0.7 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2020 following the eruption of Taal Volcano in January and the onset of the pandemic by February.
The GDP contracted by a deeper 16.9 percent in the second quarter and 11.5 percent in the third quarter. This brought averaged GDP performance at -10 percent in the first three quarters of 2020. Julito G. Rada
The government predicted a 6.5 percent to 7.5 percent recovery this year from an expected 8.5 to 9.5-percent slump in 2020.
Diokno said the 6.5 percent to 7.5 percent growth in 2021 was based on the assumption that more people would be vaccinated by the first half of 2022.
“The vaccine, I think, will come by the second quarter of 2021. The arrival of the vaccines is another positive [development] for the country,” Diokno said.
