Philippine GDP may hit "zero or minus one percent" due to coronavirus - Finance chief
The Philippine economy could grow "zero or minus one percent" due to the coronavirus disease crisis, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said.
Dominguez admitted that due to the virus, which prompted President Rodrigo Duterte to place the whole of Luzon, including Metro Manila, under enhanced community quarantine, economic gains would be eroded.
"The COVID-19 has hit us in a very hard way. The truth is, our estimate on our GDP growth will be zero or minus one percent," he said during a taped televised meeting of the President with the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases on late night of April 8.
The country posted 6.4 percent gross domestic product growth in the fourth quarter of last year, bringing the average economic expansion for 2019 to 5.9 percent.
Dominguez said the government also projects that "temporary unemployment" in the country could hit 1.2 million, which is "in comparison with the lowest unemployment rate ever achieved in the Philippines."
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Duterte administration was targeting a GDP growth of 6.5 percent to 7.5 percent.
Duterte has extended the Luzon-wide lockdown until April 30 after it became effective on March 17. The local government units outside Luzon have also declared their respective quarantine measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Celerina Monte/DMS
