NEDA Still Locked Into Boosting Economic Recovery Efforts

The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) is still locked into boosting recovery efforts to achieve a programmed upper-middle-income country status for the Philippines next year.

This is what NEDA chief and Socio-Economic Planning Secretary Karl Kendrick Chua bared, citing what he said were three pillars to growth that the economic managers have put out as a template for economic growth.

Chua said the three pillars that will govern economic recovery include the safe re-opening of the economy, the implementation of the recovery program, and the timely implementation of the government’s vaccine deployment program.

“Once the present spike is over, the government will implement quarantine relaxations in a phased approach to boost our recovery this year. Over the near term, the government will work towards moving NCR (National Capital Region) to MGCQ (modified general community quarantine), or better, allow families and children to participate in the economy, and restart face-to-face schooling,” he said.

As of July 22, some 5,560,029 Filipinos have been fully vaccinated against coronavirus while 10,866,238 doses have been given as the first dose, according to the National Task Force Against COVID-19.

Chua said the recovery program includes the PHP4.5-trillion fiscal year 2021 General Appropriations Act (GAA), the extended validity of the 2020 GAA, and the implementation of the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives (CREATE) and Financial Institutions Strategic Transfer (FIST) laws.

The 2021 GAA aims to address the COVID-19 pandemic through health-related response programs and accelerate infrastructure development through the “Build, Build, Build” (BBB) infrastructure program.

“We are investing in a wide range of infrastructure projects. They are not only roads or airports but also health facilities, also digital infrastructure --one of them is the National ID (identification). All of these are needed during this pandemic and our move to the new normal,” Chua earlier said.

Chua used to be head of a World Bank economic team that looked at prospects of Philippine growth that were cited in a profile that The Financial District run when he was tapped from his perch at the Department of Finance where he was the poster child of a push for more taxes.

The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) said seven projects amounting to PHP39.9 billion that were part of the infrastructure flagship project (IFP) list approved in 2017, 2019, and 2020 have been completed.

On the current list of 112 IFPs that was confirmed by the NEDA Board last May 12, there are 17 projects amounting to PHP154.8 billion that are expected to be completed by June 2022 when Duterte’s term ends.

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