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To help accelerate the slow recovery in domestic manufacturing and foreign trade brought on by the country’s difficult battle against the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress must already pass delayed economic reforms, according to the Department of Finance (DOF). In an economic bulletin Saturday, DOF undersecretary and chief economist Gil Beltrán said that while the country’s manufacturing and foreign trade performance was improving as quarantine restrictions gradually eased, “the recovery is not fluid “.
Beltrán pointed out that merchandise exports and imports remained in negative territory as of October, although not as bad as the year-on-year falls of 49.9 percent and 65.3 percent, respectively, in April, when 75 percent of the economy stopped.
The Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index also fell to its lowest level of 31.6 in April, but rose again in September just as exports also gradually increased year-over-year.
However, exports, imports and manufacturing contracted again in October, which Beltrán attributed to the prolonged quarantine.
“As long as there are lockdowns, consumers and investors will hesitate to behave as they did before March,” said Beltrán.
Economic managers had projected that this year’s gross domestic product would contract by a record 8.5-9.5 percent, before recovering with growth of 6.5-7.5 percent in 2021 and a faster expansion of 8-10 percent. in 2022.
Beltran told the Inquirer earlier this month that the economic team’s conservative growth projection for next year took into account the likelihood of the quarantine extending into early 2021 while vaccines are awaited.
As such, Beltrán urged deep-seated political reforms to ensure adaptation to the economic “new normal.”
“Reforms such as the Pifita (Passive Taxes on Income and Financial Intermediaries Act), as well as amendments to the Commonwealth-era Public Service Act and the Retail Trade Liberalization Act, can also help the country to resist and recover from the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. ” Beltran said.
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