Senator welcomes plan to revise economic targets

Opposition Senator Teresa Aquino Oreta welcomed Malacanang’s reported plan to revise economic growth targets amid the realities in the global arena pointing to a slower recovery pace for economies worldwide following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the US.

Expressing relief over Malacañang’s realistic outlook on the economy, Oreta said its plan to revise growth projections for this year bolstered her earlier claim that the government’s economic managers were "lost in dreamland" because they continue to come out with rosy projections despite the global slowdown now made worse by the Sept. 11 mayhem.

Said Oreta: "The Palace statement on the need to revise our growth targets shows that our executive officials are attuned to the realities in the global economic arena. This outlook, as opposed to the Pollyanna-like attitude of some of our economic managers, will help our government craft measures that jibe with economic realities. To our relief, the Palace has shown that it is willing to tackle the problems ahead instead of masking them with rosy projections."

According to earlier reports, Presidential Spokesman Rigoberto Tiglao said there may be a need to revise the country’s present growth targets owing to the economic uncertainties triggered by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the deadliest ever to have occurred on American soil.

Tiglao’s statement was in contrast to the one earlier issued by Socio-economic Planning Secretary Dante Canlas, who said there was no need to change these targets despite the global crisis arising from the terrorist strikes because he believes that the Philippine economy would remain untouched by these developments.

Yesterday, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) released its report scaling down its forecast of the growth of the Philippines’ Gross Domestic Product (GDP) this year from three percent to 2.5 percent owing largely to the sharp decline in the country’s export earnings. The IMF findings counter Canlas’ projected growth forecast of 3.3 percent to 3.8 percent for 2001.

Oreta disputed Canlas’ claim, as she pointed to the latest economic assessment made by the Dutch-based ABN Amro Bank indicating that neighboring "tiger" economies such as Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong will plunge into recession this year as a result of the fallout from the attacks, a projection that does not augur well for the Philippines.

ABN-Amro also said that earnings from the electronics sector, one of the Philippines’ export winners, will drop at an even faster rate after the Sept. 11 attacks not only because of the drop in demand but also because of the disruption in air transport.

Earlier, the United Nations (UN), and (IMF) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) have also warned about the dire effects on Asia of the global economic uncertainties.

The London-based Center for Economics and Business Research has also come out with a report showing that the terrorist attacks will result in a 2.2 percent decline in the gross domestic product (GDP) worldwide next, year Oreta added.