President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. expressed optimism that the Philippine economy will rebound after growth continued to slow and inflation rose due to high world oil prices.

Marcos told Japanese reporters on Monday that ''luckily, I suppose, or at least we are still continuing to see marked interest in investment in the Philippines.”

“And perhaps this is because of the policies that we adopted, the incentives that we have put out for investors. So slowly, we can see the way through this, where we will recover through this.”

The concern was about stagflation, in which the gross domestic product (GDP) growth becomes stagnant, while inflation continues to increase, the President explained, noting it is what the government has been trying to control.

First quarter growth came in at 2.8 percent, the slowest expansion since the COVID-19 pandemic. Headline inflation rose to 7.2 percent in April from 4.1 percent in March and 2.4 percent in February.

“And so that is very important because we want to keep the system, the economic system, continuing to function. We have done all these measures to keep inflation down,” Marcos said.

“And the public spending has been accelerated so that the GDP growth is still being assisted. We had a delay in public spending in the beginning of this year, basically in the first quarter.”

To boost growth, government spending has been directed more towards direct spending so people can immediately feel the government's assistance, the President noted.

This includes providing benefits to the people who need support, such as subsidies and discounts, particularly fuel discounts in the transport sector.

And to keep the economy going, the government has to find new ways of doing business, said the Chief Executive.

“We have to find new ways of encouraging investment. We have to find new ways of supporting MSMEs (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises) because MSMEs comprise 95 percent of our businesses in the Philippines and about 63 percent of our employment,” said the President.

“If we keep those sectors strong, I’m confident that although we will feel the effects of the oil crisis, I think that we will be able to mitigate many of the effects,” Marcos added. Presidential News Desk