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MANILA, Sept.6 (Xinhua) – The Philippines has so far obtained a total of $ 8.83 billion in loans, loans and grants for government response efforts to coronavirus disease (COVID-19) from its development partners and commercial markets. the country’s Finance Department (DOF) said on Sunday.
Of the total amount, the DOF said that $ 5.98 billion is budget support financing from the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the French Development Agency and the Japan International Cooperation Agency.
A total of US $ 2.35 billion was raised from the latest global government bond offering that scored its lowest coupon in the US dollar market, the DOF added.
The DOF said the remaining US $ 496.36 million comes from grants and loans from Philippine development partners for various COVID-19-specific projects.
Finance Secretary Carlos Domínguez said total government loans for 2020 and 2021 are projected to reach 3 trillion pesos (approximately $ 61.7 billion) to support priority expenditures necessary for the country’s rapid recovery. of the COVID-19 crisis and public investments in infrastructure and social services. services.
Domínguez added that the loans are expected to be settled at 2.3 trillion pesos (approximately 47.3 billion dollars) in 2022, with financing in favor of national sources.
He said the debt / gross domestic product (GDP) ratio is projected to settle at 54 percent this year, 58 percent in 2021 and 60 percent in 2022.
Domínguez added that these projections are even lower compared to the country’s historic high debt level of 71.6 percent of GDP in 2004.
In 2019, it said the debt-to-GDP ratio fell to a record low of 39.6 percent, “due to President Rodrigo Duterte’s prudent cash and debt management policy supported by stable economic growth.”
COVID-19, however, forced the government to impose necessary closures to save lives and protect communities, which, unsurprisingly, led to work stoppages across the country and a subsequent drastic contraction of the economy that nullified the most of the economic gains, he said.
The blockades severely restricted economic activities and silenced the government’s revenue-generating capacity, with total revenue collection reaching only 1.7 trillion pesos (approximately US $ 35 billion) in the first seven months of 2020, or a 7 percent less than revenue collection in the same period. last year’s period, with 85 percent of revenue coming from tax collection, and equivalent to negative growth of 12 percent.
The increase in public spending amid lower revenue collection raised the fiscal deficit to 700.6 billion pesos (approximately 14.4 billion dollars) in the first seven months of the year, six times more than in the same period of 2019.
“The effects of this pandemic would have been much worse if it had trapped us in a weak fiscal position. Fortunately, when it hit us, we had enough means to fight the battle and increase public spending,” Domínguez said.
The Philippines now has 237,365 confirmed COVID-19 cases, including 184,687 recoveries and 3,875 deaths. Final product
