The government expects “a steep decline” in the country’s economic growth in the coming months but still hopes for an eventual “V-shaped” recovery, Malacañang said yesterday.
The Philippine Statistics Authority earlier in the day announced that the local economy contracted by 0.2 percent from January to March this year. It is considered the country’s first economic contraction since 1998.
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque admitted they expect the economy to “shrink” further in the second quarter amid the coronavirus-related quarantine restrictions.
“We expect of course the economy to shrink even more in the month of April because the whole month of April was basically under enhanced community quarantine and the first two weeks of May as well. We definitely expect a big contraction,” he said.
Roque, however, remained optimistic that the domestic economy will rebound due to the anticipated increasing infrastructure spending.
“The economy planners are vigilant. We foresee a V-shaped economic recovery,” he said. “There will be a steep decline in the GDP for the second quarter perhaps but we expect a strong rebound courtesy of the ‘Build, Build, Build’ program of the government and the number one very prudent fiscal policy as well as prudent monetary policy which means we are using public spending as a tool of economic recovery,” he added. (Genalyn Kabiling)