MANILA — President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. expressed elation Friday over the country’s 7.6 percent annual growth in 2022, stressing his administration’s major thrust is to attract foreign investments to sustain such growth rate and development.
“We are happy to receive the news that our growth rate for the year 2022 exceeded all expectations even by the estimates of the international financing institutions and we are holding at 7.6 percent,” President Marcos said in a statement.
“However, for 2023, we still have the problem of inflation which means there is still a problem of certain sectors of society and of the economy, [who] have yet to enjoy the benefits of that growth.
And that’s why inflation is something that we are attending to,” the President pointed out.
The President said his administration has been anticipating that within the end of the 2nd quarter, the inflation rates, especially for agricultural products will come down.
The chief executive expressed optimism that the country’s inflation rate will go down to 4 percent by the 3rd or 4th quarter of this year as forecasted by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).
“We must maintain, however, that growth rate and that is why it has become so important for us to go out and to attract investment into the Philippines because that is the only way for economic activity to increase and therefore to grow the economy,” President Marcos said.
“So I think that we are headed in the right direction. We still have some interventions that we will have to apply. But nonetheless, we are weathering the shocks on the international economic situation and we are starting to see that the economy is moving in the correct direction,” Marcos explained.
The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported Thursday that the Philippines posted a 7.6 percent full-year growth in 2022, the highest in 46 years since the country recorded an 8.8 percent growth in 1976.
The Philippine Gross Domestic Product (GDP) posted a growth of 7.2 percent in the 4th quarter of 2022, resulting in a 7.6 percent full-year growth, the PSA said in its report.
The PSA said that among the main contributors to the 4th quarter 2022 growth were wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles, 8.7 percent; financial and insurance activities, 9.8 percent; and manufacturing, 4.2 percent.
Among the major economic sectors, Industry and Services posted positive growths in the 4th quarter of 2022 with 4.8 percent and 9.8 percent, respectively, according to the PSA.
The industries which contributed the most to the annual growth were: wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles, 8.7 percent; Manufacturing, 5.0 percent; and Construction, 12.7 percent. (PND)