GMA commends Monetary Board for keeping peso stable

President Arroyo commended yesterday the members of the Monetary Board, the policy-making body of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), for successfully restoring the stability of the peso which tumbled past the 55 to $1 level due to the Middle East crisis.

The peso closed at 53.25 to a dollar last Friday. The financial markets were closed yesterday, Bataan Day.

The President made this special commendation during the launching yesterday at Malacañang of the Small and Medium Enterprise Unified Lending Opportunities for National Growth (SULONG) Program.

"I specially greet our Monetary Board members here who, not only because of policies that kept the funds flowing and kept very liquid the country’s financial system, have done a lot to make our (foreign) exchange rates stable again," Mrs. Arroyo said.

"If our Republic is to be strong, we must have a strong economy," the President added.

The President particularly cited the important role of Trade and Industry Secretary Manuel Roxas II, who represents the Executive Department in the Monetary Board.

The Monetary Board is headed by BSP Governor Rafael B. Buenaventura.

The other Monetary Board members present at yesterday’s launching of SULONG were former Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Vicente Valdepeñas, Antonio Alindogan, former Energy Regulatory Board chairman Fe Barin and former DTI Undersecretary Melito Salazar.

The President recalled that as early as 2001, she had foreseen that the local economy would be seriously affected by the slowdown in the US economy.

"To cushion the impact of the global economic slowdown, Mar (Roxas) said the most important thing is to strengthen the domestic market through the small and medium enterprises," the President said.

The President urged the Monetary Board to help the administration in pushing the rural, thrift and savings banks to become active "conduits" of an estimated P1-trillion worth of funds in the country’s banking sector as loanable funds for SMEs.

Due to lack of conduits, the President noted with concern that SMEs have limited access to financing despite the fact that "there are more than a trillion pesos in the banking sector."