President Aquino on Monday “approved in principle” the proposed stimulus program for the last quarter of the year for “high-impact” projects that would help the government get a “fighting chance” of retaining its growth targets in 2011 and 2012.
Secretary Ramon Carandang of the Presidential Communications Development and Strategic Planning Office said the cost of the package—presented by Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad and Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Cayetano Paderanga to the President—is still being finalized.
“We discussed the stimulus package. The details are being worked out but the President has approved it in principle,” said Carandang, who attended the meeting.
He did not give details of the program, but said it is a “policy response” to external developments that may impact the local economy.
“This is to provide stimulus spending in the light of what we’re seeing, which is a slower global economy, and that’s going to have a possible impact on us,” Carandang said.
He said the government believes the fiscal-stimulus program would help the Philippines keep its growth targets this year and next year.
“We believe that the fiscal- stimulus program as approved in principle by the President should give us a fighting chance to maintain the growth targets, as previously announced by Secretary Purisima that we’re retaining the growth targets. And this is what we’re doing to give those growth targets a fighting chance,” Carandang said.
The government is targeting a 5-percent to 6-percent growth this year and 5.5 percent to 6.5 percent in 2012—both higher than the forecast of foreign banks and multilateral financial institutions.
“We’re not changing our targets for 2012 as contained in the GAA [General Appropriations Act] proposal for
next year,” Carandang said.
Carandang did not specify the programs to be funded by the additional expenditure program but said they are “high impact and felt at the earliest possible time.”
“The specific details are still being ironed out by our economic team. I’m not going to pre-empt the release of those programs,” he said.
Budget Secretary Florencio Abad said the projects under the fiscal-stimulus program were chosen based on three criteria: they must have an economic impact; they must benefit poor sectors and communities; and they must be quick disbursing.
Abad said the fiscal stimulus will be funded by windfall income generated by dividends from government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCCs), unspent portions of carryover appropriations from 2010, personal-services savings, and “realignments” within departments from slow- to fast-moving projects.
Abad had earlier said as part of a then-planned additional expenditure program, P1 billion will be set aside to provide for training subsidies for students in state universities and colleges to ensure their employment in key growth areas such as business-process outsourcing and tourism.
Half of the training subsidy will be spent to train 62,000 potential BPO applicants, 37,000 of whom would be guaranteed employment; the rest would be spent to train students in the semiconductor and electronics industry, tourism, agriculture and fisheries industry, and the construction and infrastructure industry.
Following developments in the United States and Europe in August, the Cabinet economic cluster started working on recommendations for mitigating measures such as stimulus spending, to soften the impact of developments in those two markets, on the Philippines.
No comments:
Post a Comment