BSP's Diokno: 8% GDP growth ‘still doable’
MANILA, Philippines — Achieving an 8% gross domestic product growth is still “doable”, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Benjamin Diokno said Thursday, citing “domestic confidence” in the economy.
“That’s still doable. With the amount of money coming in and the domestic confidence,” Diokno told ABS-CBN News Channel when asked if the 8% growth rate that the Duterte administration had hoped to achieve is still possible.
“Do you know that Jollibee is putting up 500 stores for one year — just this year? That’s 1.5 Jollibee per day. And then McDonalds is one McDonald per week all throughout the country. Can you imagine that? That’s confidence,” he added.
The BSP tightened monetary policy by a cumulative 175 basis points to 4.75% last year after inflation hit a near-decade high in September and October. Surging prices have eased since then.
GDP — or the value of all finished goods and services produced in the country — eased to 5.6% in the first three months of 2019, after a spat among lawmakers stalled the approval of the new national budget, leaving fresh projects unfunded and crimping state spending.
The latest reading was the slowest since 5.1% registered in the first quarter of 2015 and settled below the state’s downwardly revised 6%-7% annual target for 2019.
Diokno — who is widely seen by the market as a pro-growth central bank chief — has said there is room to loosen monetary policy, but stressed that the timing and magnitude of any actions would be “data dependent.”
Last month, the BSP held off further policy easing and kept its key rate unchanged after inflation accelerated to 3.2% in May. In the policy statement, monetary authorities described their decision as a “prudent pause for the time being.”
“When you serve in government, you have to think what’s good for the people. And the Philippines being... we’re growing at approximately... we’re a very prolific nation we grow about close to two billion people every year. Can you imagine the employment requirement of that?” Diokno said.
“We’re just doing the right thing. I’m not conservative. I’m not progressive. We just do the right thing and what is require right now because of what happened last year is to ease — to reduce interest rates and to reduce the reserve requirement,” he added. — Ian Nicolas Cigaral
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