PHILIPPINES
Analyst
Diwa Guinigundo
Former Central Bank Deputy GovernorDatabanks
Recent Country Insights
Beneath the diplomatic stand-off between the Philippines and China
PHILIPPINES · Report · 06 May 2024
This report adds new information about the economic implications of the China-Philippines maritime conflict to our previously published report "Diplomatic stand-off between the Philippines and China". It is best to consider that since the dispute is diplomatic, the solution should remain diplo...
Diplomatic stand-off between the Philippines and China
PHILIPPINES · Report · 06 May 2024
The economic implications of the maritime and diplomatic stand-off between the Philippines and China cannot be overemphasized. Since the Philippines is expected to continue documenting and exposing similar attempts of China to expand its territories, and China would invariably deny them, the sign...
Lower inflation a key to quieting business fears
PHILIPPINES · In Brief · 04 May 2024
By this time, many publicly-listed companies in the Philippines have held or about to hold their annual shareholders’ meeting to report on the previous year’s business performance. So far, the reports were more than encouraging with earnings beating the previous year’s post-pandemic record. Their...
Business and consumer expectations mixed for the first quarter of 2024
PHILIPPINES · Report · 23 Apr 2024
Abstracting from the results of the BSP surveys of both business and consumer respondents, Q1 2024 is likely to sustain positive economic growth that may not necessarily approximate the official target of 6-7% at least for Q1 2024 due to the dominant downside risks to economic growth including th...
Philippines: Disappointing inflation numbers
PHILIPPINES · In Brief · 04 Apr 2024
As we write this In Brief, the Philippine Statistics Authority is about to announce the inflation rate for March 2024 tomorrow at 9 am. We expect a higher inflation rate than January’s 2.8% and February’s 3.4% at slightly below 4.0%. This, to us, is a foregone conclusion because very little progr...
Manila's airports to transition from bad to good
PHILIPPINES · In Brief · 27 Mar 2024
After years of being touted as one of the worst airports in the world, there might be hope for the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA). Its ill reputation is not surprising: from 2010-2023, the Manila International Airport Authority (MIIA) put in only P27.1 billion as capital expenditure, w...
Philippines: Jobs trend slightly reverses course
PHILIPPINES · Report · 18 Mar 2024
The Philippines’ employment rate increased slightly, to 95.5 percent in January 2024 from the 95.2 percent posted in January of the previous year. The rate was, however, lower than the 96.9 percent employment rate recorded in December 2023. Some seasonality is definitely involved here. Consider...
Banking activities rising despite high interest rates?
PHILIPPINES · In Brief · 09 Mar 2024
Contrary to the expectations of many, the Philippine economy sustained its expansion at 5.6% in 2023 from an extremely robust growth of 7.6% in 2022. Indeed, this was lower than the official target of 6% - 7% and what is required to recover its previous growth path prior to the pandemic of 2020. ...
BSP not too anxious to unhinge monetary policy
PHILIPPINES · In Brief · 04 Mar 2024
In a quote that could very well apply to the BSP’s inflation management, BSP Governor Eli Remolona was quoted having declared that “we want to be prepared for the dangers of rosy scenarios” when the central bank’s Financial Stability Report was rolled out to the public three weeks ago, February 1...