Senate cautioned that reenacted budget could weigh on growth
THE PHILIPPINES’ gross domestic product (GDP) growth may lose 1.1-2.3 percentage points should the 2018 national budget be reenacted for the whole year in 2019, according to estimates which state economic managers submitted to the Senate on Monday.
Analysts widely expect rate hike pause
THE BANGKO SENTRAL ng Pilipinas (BSP) may finally take a breather and keep benchmark interest rates steady this week, analysts said in a BusinessWorld poll, agreeing that inflation seems to be on its way down.
S&P: Loan growth to slow in 2019
LOAN GROWTH will likely ease in 2019 as higher interest rates bite, S&P Global Ratings said, even as it noted that heavy funding needs for the aggressive infrastructure spending program will boost lending.
Gov’t moves to start work on worst-hit Marawi sites
THE GOVERNMENT is looking to draw P2.4 billion from unprogrammed funds in the 2018 budget to help kick-start rehabilitation of Marawi City areas that were the most damaged in last year’s five-month battle with Islamic State-inspired local militants, a senior economic planning official said last week.
Cigarette-making machinery the latest front in government’s war on smuggling
CIGARETTE-MAKING machines from China continue to enter the country, following the discovery of unregulated cigarette factories, the Department of Finance (DoF) said.
Fed policy makers signal turning point on US rate hike path
WASHINGTON/INDIANAPOLIS -- The US central bank is flagging a turning point in monetary policy, as a Federal Reserve policy maker on Friday backed interest rate hikes in the “near term” but nodded to increasingly less certainty ahead.
FX buffer edges up as of end-November but smaller than a year ago
GROSS INTERNATIONAL RESERVES (GIR) — which help shield the country from foreign exchange shocks — roughly steadied as of end-November from their end-October level, propped up by income from the central bank’s investments abroad, but was six percent less than the year-ago amount, according to data released on Friday by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).
Trade dep’t says export of goods on track even as growth falls short of...
THE COUNTRY should be able to hit the Trade department’s merchandise export target in 2018, officials of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said on Friday, even though growth will be in low single-digit rate and will lag behind last year’s pace.
Front-loading of borrowings pushes up state debt-GDP ratio
GOVERNMENT DEBT in proportion to economic output settled at 42.3% in the nine months to September, bigger than the 41.7% recorded in the same period last year, the Department of Finance (DoF) said in an economic bulletin on Friday.
ADB cites hurdles to major railway project
THE ASIAN DEVELOPMENT BANK (ADB) has identified environmental risks to construction of the Solis-Calamba segment of the P777.55-billion North-South Railway Project, but said they can be mitigated.
Q3 FDI pledges biggest in nearly 2 years
APPROVED foreign direct investment (FDI) commitments rose to their highest level in nearly two years last quarter even as growth slowed from the preceding three months and a year ago, according to data the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) released on Thursday.
BSP finds businesses less bullish, consumers more pessimistic in Q4
EVEN the seasonal holiday cheer failed to lift investor and consumer spirits in this quarter, with confidence plummeting to multi-year lows as inflation continues to bite, according to findings of the central bank’s latest surveys.