Duterte's Economic Managers Trim Growth Targets Amid ECQ

The Duterte administration's economic managers have reduced the country's GDP growth target for 2021 to between 6% and 7%, down from a previous estimate of 6.5-7.5%. This adjustment is due to stricter lockdown measures in the National Capital Region Plus area, as well as new COVID-19 variants.

The DBCC expects economic growth to improve to between 7-9% next year and return to pre-pandemic levels of 6-7% by 2024. The deficit ceiling for this year was raised to 9.4% of GDP, but is expected to decrease in subsequent years.

The DBCC also kept the inflation target at 2-4% until 2024 and projected a sustained decline in domestic price increases starting in Q4 2021.