"Our deficit is below 2.5 percent. Maybe we can ask our multilateral creditors like World Bank to lend us money for further fiscal strengthening," Finance Assistant Secretary Gil Beltran said.
Beltran said the NG was not able to borrow this particular loan from the WB for the past four years because of the government’s weak fiscal condition.
NG was supposed to borrow about $150 million each year for Fiscal Restructuring Loan Program.
By next year, he said they may be able to tap from this loan program. "One of the pre-condition to get from this loan is for us to have a good fiscal position. We might negotiate for a higher amount. It could be more than $150 million," Beltran said.
He said the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has also pledged support. "Actually, the ADB has already started when it gave the first tranche of the $150-million Microfinance Development Loan," he noted.
According to Beltran, the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) might also consider giving co-financing.
Beltran said the multilateral creditors are normally giving loans of up to $1 billion for fiscal restructuring if they see some efforts from the countries to improve their fiscal position. "India has received $1 billion," he said.
But Beltran said the improvement in the fiscal position of the NG still hinges on the implementation of crucial tax measures such as the expanded value-added tax (EVAT).
He said though that there are ways to look for alternative measures to cover the losses from the non-implementation of EVAT. "The administrative measures could not commensurate to the revenues that we could raise from EVAT."
The government expects to raise some P82.5 billion additional revenues from the implementation of EVAT.
As of end-August 2005, NG has availed only P22.1 billion worth of official development assistance from various multilateral creditors.
During the period, NG has availed P5.6 billion program loans, much lower than programmed P22.44 billion this year.
As of end-August this year, NG’s project loans reached only P16.5 billion as against the P30.1-billion target for the whole of 2005.