The Philippine economy is expected to grow by six to seven percent next year, '' despite the headwinds'' , National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said Monday.

“Despite the headwinds we face, the economic team of the Marcos administration remains confident of our prospects in the midterm. The robust domestic economy propelled by sustained consumption investment will be key to attaining the 6 to 7 (percent) growth or percent growth target for 2023,” Balisacan said at a press conference.

“We aim to accompany this expansion with headline and food inflation rates of 2.5 to 4.5 percent, and unemployment of 5.3 to 6.4 percent, and we expect poverty incidence to fall to about 16.2 percent in 2023 from its 2021 level of 18 percent,” he added.

Balisacan said that the growth of the economy is likely to exceed the government’s growth targets in the fourth quarter of 2022.

“(In) the first three quarters, we are already reaching a 7.7 or 6 percent. So, it quite exceeded already, and given the indication that we are seeing on the fourth quarter, it’s likely going to exceed even the upper limit of that range. We expect to see robust growth in the fourth quarter,” he said.

Balisacan said they expect to see growth to continue next year but it needs to diversify its sources of growth.

“In the last ten years, you see there that the major driver of growth is consumption on the demand side, and then you have services also on the supply side,” Balisacan said.

“But as I said earlier, moving forward, in the medium-term we need to expand, diversify those sources of growth. Instead of just looking at consumption, we need to be seeing more investments, we need to be seeing more trade sources of growth; and in the supply side instead of just seeing services we need to see more manufacturing, more constructions, more utilities, even mining,” he added.

Agriculture could also be a source of growth, according to Balisacan.

“Agriculture of course is going to be also a driver to the extent that we can increase productivity there, and temper any pressures extended or exerted on food prices,” he said. Jaspearl Tan/DMS