PH economy seen to grow 6% in ‘23 despite elevated inflation, says ADB

PH manufacturing score in March 3rd highest in ASEAN

The S&P Global Philippines Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) reported that the country’s manufacturing sector continued to post improvement in March with a score of 52.5, the third highest in Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region.

In its report released Monday, the country’s manufacturing PMI last month was slightly lower than the 52.7 index in February this year.

S&P Global said despite the slowdown in manufacturing score, the domestic sector still indicated a historically strong improvement in operating conditions.

“The first quarter of 2023 concluded on a solid note, with a further expansion reported across the Filipino manufacturing sector, according to the latest PMI data. Both output and new orders rose at historically strong rates,” S&P Global Market Intelligence economist Maryam Baluch said. Baluch said firms raised their purchasing activity to keep up with the increasing sales.

“However, operating conditions improved at the slowest pace in seven months partly due to the softer rise in production and stocks of purchases, and with a second month of job shedding weighing on the headline index,” she added.

The Philippine economy is expected to grow moderately at 6 percent in 2023 despite elevated inflation, which is slower than the above-target outturn in 2022, the Asian Development Bank said on Tuesday.

The PMI report also noted that inflationary pressure among factories softened in March but shortages in raw materials, higher energy prices and delays in delivery have kept operating costs elevated.

“Despite a slight slowdown, March data revealed pressures on inflation and supply chains easing. Operating expenses rose at the slowest pace in 27 months, while the incidence of delays was among the weakest since the current sequence of deterioration in vendor performance began in August 2019,” Baluch said.

Meanwhile, the report said Philippine-based manufacturing companies were optimistic in their output growth for the next 12 months.

“Business confidence across the sector remained upbeat, as strong demand conditions buoyed optimism in the outlook for future output,” Baluch added. The manufacturing PMI measures the health of the sector by giving a score of above 50 to improving manufacturing conditions, while scores below 50 reflect deterioration of the sector.

(PNA)

Recovery in retail trade, expansion in the manufacturing sector and public infrastructure spending are likely to support the growth, according to the Asian Development Outlook report released by ADB.

However, the looming slowdown in major economies, heightened political tensions and sticky inflation remain as risks to the gross domestic product (GDP) growth, the report said.

The country’s GDP is seen to grow further to 6.2 percent in 2024, the Manila-based multilateral lender said.

“The Philippines will grow at its potential this year and next and is on track toward its goal to become an upper middle-income country,” said ADB Philippines Country Director Kelly Bird.

Economic managers have said the Philippines could become an upper-middle-income country by 2024. The feat could have been achieved earlier if there was no disruption brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, the government had said.

Inflation, meanwhile, is expected to remain high at 6.2 percent in 2023 before easing to 4 percent average by 2024, the ADB said. This is in line with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ estimate of 6 percent average this year and below the 2 to 4 percent target in 2024.

Both the ADB and the BSP expect inflation to start easing in the second half of 2022 as monetary policy tightening takes effect and as global commodity prices ease.

The BSP earlier raised the benchmark interest rate to 6.25 percent as inflation remain above

FECONOMY, P10

PH broadband speed accelerates; mobile speed dips in Feb.: Ookla

The country’s internet speed saw mixed movements in February as fixed broadband speed saw further improvement while mobile speed declined slightly during the period, according to the latest figures released by global speed monitoring firm Speedtest by Ookla.

The latest Ookla Speedtest Global Index report showed the country’s fixed broadband download median speed rose to 90.03 megabits per second (Mbps) from the 88.13 Mbps registered in the previous month.

The February fixed broadband download also represents an improvement of 18.95% since the Marcos administration began in July 2022.

Meanwhile, mobile median download speed slightly dipped as the country yielded a download speed of 24.58 Mbps from 24.59 Mbps in January.

In a statement, the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) said that ensuring the improvement of internet speed remains a priority as the country fast-tracks its digitization.

“We are also happy that Elon Musk’s Starlink is also now available in the country to give Filipinos in underserved and unserved areas fast and reliable internet,” said NTC Commission-

The recent public transport strike in Metro Manila has evoked fears the iconic jeep popu-larly associated with names like Sarao and Francisco, may be heading to the museum display shelves. Simply said, the public transport that has become a part of being a Filipino and the face of Philippine tourism is on the way out.

Be that as it may, the jeep also reminds us of its predecessor, the AC jeep (a play on ‘gen-eral purpose’), so named after the post-liberation, 10-seater auto calesa that was the king of Davao City roads, chiefly serving major roads and population centers. Some of the owners formed themselves into a group known as Davao Auto Calesa Operators Association (DA-COA), and listed one of its directors Gaudencio Antonino, who later became a senator.

(The Spanish-era Miguel