Former National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Director General Solita Monsod questioned World Bank projections of 5.7 for this year's growth compared to the government's 7-8 percent.

During the World Bank's Philippine Economic Update forum on Thursday morning, Monsod asked World Bank Senior Economist Kevin Chua how they came up with their projections.

''From experience, which is the better predicter, the government or the World Bank?'' she asked.

Chua said "with different assumptions and different projections we cannot really say whether one is (better)."

"When we do projections we have our own assumptions and at least for the World Bank side our assumptions or our projections is that the domestic environment will be much stronger this year but then there is a lot weakness, a lot of headways coming in the external environment so if you seen our projections its a bit conservative only because we are seeing the impact of the external environment," he said.

Monsod replied: ''Ok, I will not press the issue.''

In the same forum, Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas Gov. Benjamin Diokno expressed confidence in the 7 to 8 percent growth target of the government for 2022.

"Let me start by saying the Philippines is on its way to full recovery after the pandemic driven recession in 2020. The economy grew by 5.7 percent last year and sustained its robust momentum with an 8.3 percent growth in the first quarter of 2022. We expect the economy to grow much faster in the second quarter making the growth target for this year of 7 to 8 percent doable," he said.

"Given all these positive developments we are optimistic that the Philippine economy will do better this year with the economy growing at 8.3 percent in the first quarter. We expect it to grow by 7 to 8 percent this year and by 6 to 7 percent next year," he added. Robina Asido/DMS