Balisacan says damage from ''Egay'' was ''not substantial''
National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said damage from Super Typhoon “Egay” was “not substantial” even as the Department of Agriculture (DA) reported that crop losses reached P3.17 billion from Tuesday’s P1.94 billion.
“The thing is, this June, July, and August are not really that harvest season in many parts of the country or for other basic agricultural products. So I think that the damage is not that substantial and so I think that the impact on inflation and the overall economy is not that serious at this point,” Balisacan told ANC.
“The data that we have seen so far are not that big yet. But of course, the events are still unfolding and the data is still incomplete. But we do hope that the impact, particularly in agriculture is not that bad as compared to the other episodes of monsoon rains in the past,” he said.
Balisacan said the country has enough stocks of basic commodities, including rice.
“I think a lot of imports came in the first half of the year. I think it allows us to have that buffer,” he said.
According to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC), the damage to agriculture from “Egay” amounted to P1,971,988,530.04 with 148,788.76 hectares of crops affected. It also affected 144, 622 farmers.
Damage to infrastructure reached P3,529,972,255.78.
Asked about his inflation forecast for the second quarter, Balisacan said: “We are still working on that target of six to seven percent for the year. We’ll be happy if we hit the six percent given the quite challenging headwinds in the external environment, particularly the slow down in our trading partners.”
“So I think all we need is an average of 5.9 percent for the last three quarters of the year to hit the six percent growth, the lower point of the range. So we have not given up,” he added.
Balisacan said to ensure that the country would meet its growth targets, the key was to make sure the domestic economy was working well.
“Much of our growth over the last couple of years has been very much domestic, a very small part of our national income growth is coming from international trade. So the trick is to ensure that the domestic economy is working well,” he said.
Balisacan believes that investment was essential to creating better jobs.
“For us in NEDA and the entire economic team, we are convinced and quite realistic that without massive investment, both domestic and foreign, we would have a hard time achieving improvement in our employment and our workers,” he said.
“You need to get highly remunerative employment opportunities but that will not come out of nowhere. We have to aggressively get that investment going because without investment the productivity will not rise,” he added. Jaspearl Tan/DMS
