Pinoys can look forward to a 'Merry Christmas'

MANILA, Philippines - Filipinos can look forward to a ‘Merry Christmas’ this year, the country’s socioeconomic planning body said on Wednesday more than six months before the holidays.

“The worst is over" for the Philippines since the global economy appears to be “turning the corner," Dennis Arroyo, director of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), said.

The announcement was made after the National Statistics Office (NSO) reported on Tuesday that exports contracted by 30.9 percent in March, an improvement from the nearly 40-percent drop recorded in the first two months of the year.

The lower decline in exports reflected cautious optimism that the US, Europe, and Japan, the world's major economies, are showing signs of recovery.

Amid the global uncertainty, the Philippines remains resilient, Arroyo said.

“The smoking gun of impending recovery is that layoffs sharply dropped in April and Cebu firms are starting to rehire workers," he said.

For April, there were only recorded 1,026 layoffs, against the more than 10,000 recorded layoffs monthly since November last year.

April was the month when the P330-billion Economic Resiliency Plan took effect, he said.

Since foreign employers favor Filipino workers, remittances, which support consumption, “will most certainly grow, not contract."

The World Bank has earlier forecast that remittances in the Philippines will fall by four percent from its estimate of $18 billion in remittances sent home by Filipinos living and working overseas in 2008.

Most countries in the Middle East prefer Filipino workers because they are “more disciplined and more skilled in their work," Arroyo said.

Saudi Arabia, which is building five mega cities, also prefers to hire Filipino workers.

The subsiding inflation also augurs well for consumer spending from this quarter until the end of the year.

From hitting of more than a decade high of 12.4 percent in August last year, the hike in consumer prices have been easing, reaching just 4.8 percent in April.

The Philippine economy may still hit the high-end of the growth target of 4.1 percent this year, Arroyo said - GMANews.TV

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