Accelerating the vaccination roll-out, managing risks better and implementing the economic recovery program are the government’s three key strategies to reach the country’s growth targets for 2021 and 2022, the National Economic and Development Authority said over the weekend.
NEDA Secretary Karl Kendrick Chua said in a presentation that while the economy contracted 17 percent in the second quarter of 2020, it was no slowly recovering with the latest growth rate of 11.8 percent in the second quarter of 2021.
“We can get back up to 4 to 5 percent growth this year and 7 to 9 percent next year by doing three important things. First is accelerating the vaccination program. By next month, this will be opened to the general population and will also include teenagers ages 12 years old and up. This is the most important thing we need to do as soon as the [vaccine] supply comes in. We have seen that our vaccine roll-out has been fast, reaching half a million per day at its peak,” he said.