The Philippine economy is seen to be “moving upwards” towards the end of the year based on the conservative gross domestic product (GDP) growth forecast of 0.8 to 1.8 percent. GDP is the total volume of goods and services produced in a country in a year.

In the first quarter, "we already saw a growth of positive 0.4 percent, which is expected to rise further until the end of the year," said Deputy Director General Rolando Tungpalan of the National Economic and Development Authority at his joint press briefing Friday with Cabinet Secretary Silvestre Bello III. “If you are talking about the first quarter performance which some quarters claimed there would be declining overseas remittances, official statistics do not confirm what these projections are saying. Nevertheless, the government will continue with its infrastructure investments,” Tungpalan said. He said business and consumer surveys indicate a growing upbeat sentiment. “The precautionary savings that was felt in the first quarter was a very natural reaction of households because during uncertain times you don’t know to what extent people take those precautionary measures,” he added. On the reported warning made by former Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno of a 30 percent contraction in exports, or higher than the assumptions made by the International Monetary Fund in predicting the recession for the Philippines, Tungpalan said “Based on the report of the exporters and the export captains, we are seeing a decline lower than what we expected. The numbers we are reading are about 13 and 15 percent, rather than the 18 percent (we projected) on the high side.” We will see how things will come in the May report. The import figure of April increased, the contraction was greater than the previous month of 37 percent versus 36 percent. Again, the export sector was surprised why the numbers were lower. The imports contracted whereas they were expecting it to grow over the exports. Orders have been made in April and May,” he said. “We expect the economy to move upward. Even China has a very impressive first quarter growth at 6.1 GDP. In fact Asia itself is now a very strong market for the Philippines. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has been instructing the economic managers to look at the opportunity of relating more with China than with our usual dependence with the North,” he said. Asia, widely considered as a very rich area, has prospects of expanding its economy. With a strong domestic economy, a strong export market, this means well for our sustainable growth, Tungpalan said. On credit rating agency, Moody’s rethinking its credit rating for the Philippines in view of the decline in GDP rates, Tungpalan said, that “most of these assessments are based on the first quarter modest growth and we keep stressing the fact that the first quarter does not reflect the rest of the year’s performance.”