MANILA, May 24 (Xinhua) -- Philippine economic managers have come up with "a carefully crafted and bold expenditure catch-up plan" to enable the economy to hit a gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of above 6 percent this year, the government officials said on Friday.
To enable hitting a GDP growth rate above 6 percent this year, Philippine Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez said in a statement the government needs to ramp up its spending. Dominguez is the head of President Rodrigo Duterte's economic team.
In 2019, he said the government disbursements are targeted to reach 3.774 trillion pesos (71.89 billion U.S. dollars), equivalent to 19.6 percent of GDP. "This is 10.7 percent higher than the actual disbursement in 2018," Dominguez said.
Meanwhile, he added total infrastructure disbursements would have to reach 1 trillion pesos (19.05 billion U.S. dollars), equivalent to 5.2 percent of GDP, with the national government accounting for 808.7 billion pesos (15.40 billion U.S. dollars) of targeted infrastructure spending.
"We will intensify our efforts to restore last year's upward momentum in our growth rate," Dominguez said.
The southeast Asian country's GDP expanded 6.2 percent in 2018. However, the Philippine economy grew by just 5.6 percent in the first quarter of 2019, the slowest growth rate recorded in 16 quarters.
Dominguez said the delay in passing the 2019 budget during the first three months of this year "hit our economy hard." Public spending plays a crucial role in supporting the rapid expansion of domestic economic activity, he added.
Because of the budget impasse, the government was forced to work with last year's budget, which constrained the government in implementing new programs and projects.
"This resulted in underspending of around 1 billion pesos (19.05 million U.S. dollars) per day during the first quarter," Dominguez said.
To reach the full-year growth target of 6-7 percent, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia said the economy will need to expand by an average of 6.1 percent over the next three quarters.
