Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said he expects the economy to gather steam in the second quarter, as the latest surge in coronavirus infections subsided and the government started to rapidly expand the mass vaccination program against COVID-19.
Dominguez told a business forum Thursday if overseas manufacturers were able to deliver the volume of vaccines as committed and planned, the Duterte administration would have enough doses to inoculate not only the 70 million Filipino adults, but also about 15 million teenagers once an anti-COVID-19 shot for them was approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
He said that if this happened, the country could expect a significant containment of infections by the second half of 2021.
“There is good news on the horizon, however. In the second quarter of this year, we expect to begin growing our economy again. We see that the second wave of infections that started at the end of March has subsided dramatically. We hope that this will be the last surge,” Dominguez said in his speech during the virtual general membership meeting of the Pampanga Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
He said vaccine deliveries had started to pick up, allowing the government to open the inoculation program to frontline workers in the essential sectors of the economy.
“We are also in the process of negotiating for the booster shots next year. The COVID-19 pandemic should soon be contained,” said Dominguez.
Dominguez assured Pampanga’s business community that the Duterte administration was fully supportive of small and independent businesspersons as the economy’s recovery would rely on their “innovation, dynamism, and boldness in making investments.”
“I encourage you to continue your expansion plans and accelerate the shift to digitalization in order to meet the demands of the New Economy. I also urge you to start adopting measures that would make your businesses climate-resilient and a contributor to our climate mitigation initiatives,” Dominguez said.
He said the country was also counting on micro, small and medium enterprises to drive the post-pandemic recovery and bring down unemployment and poverty rates, as these businesses employ the majority of workers in the economy.
“Together, let us rise to the present challenges we are facing and build back a stronger economy and a more sustainable future for the Filipino people,” he said.
Dominguez said the government supported the business sector by ensuring fiscal stability, which led to the country’s highest-ever sovereign credit ratings—a status that ensured lower interest rates and cheaper, more accessible financing for enterprises.
Several game-changing reforms were also passed under the Duterte administration that allowed MSMEs to flourish, with Pampanga as among the biggest beneficiaries of these measures.
The economy contracted by 4.2 percent in the first quarter, deeper than the 0.7 percent decline a year ago but an improvement from the 8.3-percent decline in the fourth quarter of 2020.
The government expects the GDP to grow between 6 percent and 7 percent this year.
