|
HIGH oil
prices may force the national government to revise its
economic targets for the year, according to the National
Economic and Development Authority (Neda).
Neda
Acting Director General Augusto Santos noted oil prices
have recently breached the psychological per-barrel mark
in the world market at $105 per barrel. Santos said that
while the country uses the cheaper
Dubai crude, its price—at a range of $80 to $90 per barrel
today—is not far from world market prices.
Dubai crude prices were the assumptions used in forecasting
the range of 6.3-percent to 7.0-percent gross domestic
product (GDP) growth in 2008. “The Development Budget
Coordination Committee [DBCC], the official economic
forecaster of the government, will be meeting soon. The
DBCC may revise targets. We definitely need to review
the targets since oil prices have already hit $105 per
barrel in the world market.”
Earlier,
Josef Yap, the president of the government think tank
Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS),
said the country may post a 5.9-percent GDP growth in
2008 and expect a gross national product (GNP) of a
weaker 6.4 percent.
The
lower economic projection,
Yap said, can
also be traced to the absence of election spending, low
government investment rate due to the attempt to balance
the budget, and the strong peso, which hampers exports.
Yap said
the slowdown in the country’s economy will be
across-the-board, but the momentum generated by the 2007
growth will be enough to maintain a 2008 GDP growth of
5.9 percent.
He said
services will continue to be the main driver with its
projected growth of 7.2 percent. Industry will not be
far behind with a projected growth of 5.2 percent; while
agriculture, fishery and forestry will grow by a modest
3.8 percent.
Yap also
said he expects growth in personal- consumption
expenditure to ease to 5.5 percent, while structural
constraints will not prevent investment from posting a
moderate growth of 6.5 percent since several government
projects still need to be completed, as reflected in the
10-percent growth in construction value-added.
He also
expected inflation to be in the high end of the central
bank’s target of 3 percent to 5 percent. |
