AMRO Revises PH Growth Outlook For 2022, 2023

The ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO) has reduced its gross domestic product (GDP) forecast for the Philippines this 2023 but expects the country to be among the top performers in the region.

“We expect growth to be back to about 6.2%. So this is still a very strong growth rate,” AMRO chief economist Hoe Ee Khor said.

Based on AMRO’s Regional Economic Outlook report, the GDP growth forecast was reduced from 6.3% to 6.2%. The Philippines is still expected to have the second fastest growth in Southeast Asia next to Vietnam, with a projected growth of 6.8%.

For 2022, AMRO raised its GDP projection for the country to 7.3% from the previous 6.9%.

“During the year, we were not very sure how well the economy will do because the central bank was tightening policy. But as it turns out, the economy has been very resilient and growth outperformed expectations in the third quarter, and because of that we have revised up the growth rate from 6.9% to 7.3% last year,” Khor said.

The Philippine Statistics Authority is set to report the country’s full-year economic performance on Jan. 26.

Furthermore, the report showed AMRO revised its inflation forecast for the Philippines to 4.3% this year from the previous 4% expectation.

“Inflation is relatively high, but that is because unlike some of the countries, the Philippines does not have rice subsidy to contain inflation,” Khor said.

However, he added that the central bank has been proactive through its tightening policy to counter inflation.

“I know that the [BSP] governor has mentioned there could be another 25 to 50 basis points (bps) increase before the end of the tightening cycle, and the plan is also to reduce the reserve requirement ratio by 200 bps. But they will only do that once they see inflation has come off, which I think is the right thing to do,” Khor said.

For the ASEAN+3, the AMRO raised the inflation forecast this 2023 to 4.5% from 3.4%.

Source: Philstar