The head of the Duterte administration’s economic team has maintained that the pace of the rollout of infrastructure projects was faster this time around than during the previous administration.
Asked to comment on the World Bank’s decision to downgrade its growth forecast for the Philippines to 6.6 percent from 6.8 percent previously, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III told reporters late Thursday that “basically, they said they made a wrong estimate, that’s what they said.”
In a report released this week, the World Bank blamed “slower than expected” implementation of public infrastructure projects thus far for their lower gross domestic product (GDP) growth projection for the country.
“The delay in the anticipated push of the planned government infrastructure program has been contributing to the moderation of fixed capital formation growth, softening the growth prospect for the year,” the World Bank said.
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Also, “the pace of economic growth could be slower if the government is unable to timely deliver on its planned infrastructure program,” the World Bank warned.
“I don’t know what their assumptions were, so I can’t really comment. All I can say is they made a wrong estimate,” Dominguez said.
