Focusing on increased public spending, many have voiced their doubts on If it is indeed true that a trillion pesos worth of government money is lost yearly to corruption.
That said, it would not be unreasonable therefore to suppose that plugging at least 35 percent of this corrupted trillion and channeling it to spending on vital infrastructure alone may already account for 7.1 billion dollars which is equivalent to the possible FDI figure for 2017.
Nonetheless, pronouncement have already been made that the government will spend about 7 trillion pesos on infrastructure alone over the next 6 years. (http://www.philstar.com/business/2016/08/15/1613736/duterte-admin-spend-p7t-infra-next-6-years)
Truth is the Philippines at the moment has the cash due to the low Debt to GDP ratio, and enough foreign exchange reserves able to ward off external pressures on the currency. This means that our economy is perhaps the most stable as it can be. There may not be a better time.
Increased inter-Asian trade will further boost the economy
Moreover, the news of the 7.1% GDP for the last quarter balks at pessismists who early on declared that a Duterte presidency would bring the country down the isolationist, and populist road of Venezuela.
Far from it, actually, since the Philippines being Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) chair, is aggressively pushing economic integration that will only enhance intra-ASEAN trade, which many do not know, accounts for about a fifth of all external Philippine trade. Duterte himself is known as a champion of the Brunei-Indonesia Malaysia Philippines growth area, a subregional economic grouping under ASEAN.
Any new trade taking place within these borders augurs well for the country, especially the poorer southern regions of the Visayas and Mindanao. Any new growth among them will push our national GDP figures higher. Note that 60% of GDP comes from the greater Manila area.
Just check our foreign trade statistics at the website of the Philippine Statistics Authority. What it tells us is that $26.705 billion or 20.6 percent of our 130 Billion dollar total foreign trade is with the ASEAN bloc, followed by China and Hongkong at a combined 19.9%. This is followed by Japan at 14.4%. The United States at fourth and the European Union at fifth rank at 12.7 and 10.7%, respectively.
Duterte’s economic policies look to increase our trade volumes within Asia, while maintaining, or even increasing our volumes with the US and Europe. Already, a slew of European investments is poised to enter the country, contrary, again, to fears of some that the western economies will avoid us due to the Presidents pronouncements.
Chinese and Japanese businesses have already been visiting the Philippines to look at opportunities at what they consider an “outperformer” among nations with the fastest consistent economic growth.
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