Economic Forecast for the Philippines

By Joanne Villanueva

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has raised its growth forecast for the Philippines to 4.5 percent by next year.

This was announced Tuesday after the week-long IMF Staff Visit to Manila since last week.

In the IMF World Economic Outlook (WEO) released earlier this month, the lender projected a six percent growth, as measured by gross domestic product (GPD), for the country this year and four percent for next year.

Vivek Arora, head of the Staff Visit team, said the improvement in their forecast was made on account of recent developments showing the continued resiliency of the domestic economy to the recent crisis as well as ongoing debt crisis in the Euro area.

In a statement, the IMF team said the country "emerged relatively well from the global financial crisis."

"The monetary and fiscal policy stimulus in response to the global crisis in 2008-2009, as well as resilient remittances, helped to cushion the downturn and is now supporting the strong recovery," it said.

Amid the increase in the lender's 2011 growth forecast for the country, the figure is lower than the government's seven to eight percent target.

IMF's 2010 forecast for the Philippines is at the higher end of the government's five to six percent target.