Trade and Industry Secretary Ramon M. Lopez said the domestic economy is still on track for a V-shaped recovery with improved investment climate this year.
Lopez, who spoke at today’s listing ceremony of Nissin Monde Corp. initial public offering — the largest in the Philippine Stock Exchange history — said “Despite the recent community quarantine lockdowns, we see that the economy is still on track for a V-shaped recovery with macroeconomic indices pointing towards an overall improved investment climate for 2021.”
The DTI chief cited the improvement in the country’s unemployment rate to 7.1 percent in March from 8.8 percent in February and 8.7 percent in January, and the Philippine’s Purchasing Manager’s Index hurdled the 50-point index. The country’s exports have also gone up 31.6 percent year-on-year, faster even than the pre-pandemic level in 2019.
All these, he said, pointed to strong investors’ confidence in the domestic economy, which can attributed to the expected recovery this year with 5-6 percent GDP growth and the accelerated vaccine rollout this second semester.
With 110 million population that has a demographic sweet spot, with an average young age of 24 years old, the economy still exhibits solid fundamental.”That means more productive years ahead of them that should serve as a rich pool of manpower resources needed for growth, as well as a continuously growing consumer base with increasing income and purchasing power,” he said.
In addition, the government is also pursuing economic reforms with Congress accelerating the deliberation on the bills certified urgent by President Duterte.
Recently passed was the Corporate Recovery and Tax incentives for Enterprises (or CREATE) Act, a game-changing law on tax reform, with a more meaningful set of investment incentives that will promote more modern and innovation-oriented industrial capacities.
Other legislative measures include the amendments to the Retail Trade law and Public Services Act
Together with a very aggressive infrastructure development program, Lopez said these strategic reforms will certainly create a better business climate for companies like Monde Nissin and even for the millions of Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) to prosper.
“This should bring in more investments, jobs, and income—leading to a better quality of life for the Filipino people,” he said.