The Philippines economy proved resilient in the past six months despite the global uncertainties that could have stifled growth and impacted the stability of the financial system, Financial Stability Coordination Council chairman and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Benjamin Diokno said Thursday.
Diokno said in a statement the council should remain vigilant against potential disruptions from global developments to ensure that Filipinos could rely on a functioning financial system.
The FSCC is composed of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the Department of Finance, the Insurance Commission, the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Securities and Exchange Commission. It is the venue for financial market authorities to identify, monitor, manage and mitigate the build-up of systemic risks in the financial system.
“The council will always choose to be pre-emptive against possible systemic risks,” Diokno said during the recent meeting of the council, which also reaffirmed the country’s strong domestic economic performance.
“The global outlook has changed significantly downwards over the last six months, and yet our first-quarter growth was a strong 8.3 percent year-on-year. This reflects the resilience of the local economy,” Diokno said.
The FSCC noted that with the first-quarter growth outperforming market expectations, prospects for the economy differed significantly from global trends and that the local growth momentum was expected to be sustained despite fluidity of markets worldwide.
This was validated by the recent International Monetary Fund statement which showed a higher growth forecast for 2022 for the country despite a significant reduction in global growth.
The FSCC said the rest of the world was already feeling the pressure from rising fuel costs and the recent policy actions of the US Federal Reserve.